THE 



CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



THE REV. JOHN CILMHING, D. D. 

MINISTER OF THE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH, 
CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN. 

AUTHOR OF "APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES," " LECTURES ON DANIEL,' 
" FORESHADOWS," ETC. 



So shall her holy bounds increase, 
"With walls of praise and gates of peace ; 
So shall the vine, which martyrs' tears 
And blood sustained in other years, 

With fresher life be clothed upon, 
And to the world in beauty show 
Like the rose-plant of Jericho, 

And glorious as Lebanon. 



Imrair &&tim t xmmi aitir rnrnrtet 



LONDON: 
ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, AND CO., 

25, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

SOLD BY 

J. F. SHAW, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, RUSSELL SQUARE. 
PATON AND RITCHIE ; J. MENZIES, EDINBURGH. 
JOHN ROBERTSON, DUBLIN. 



MDCCCLin. 




JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY 



PREFACE. 



One loves to trace the stream upward to its foun- 
tain. Christianity was first preached in Paradise. 
Adam and Eve were the first believers. Abel was 
the first Christian martyr. They lived and loved, 
. and prayed and praised, in the grey and misty dawn. 
They looked forward and upward to the rising of 
the Sun of righteousness, and rejoiced in the in- 
creasing light. In their faith and hope, the " wo- 
man's seed " was all and in all. By faith Enoch and 
Noah walked with God. These ancient saints did 
not live on bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
ceeded from the mouth of God. 

The Church I ever regard, not as an ecclesiastical 
hierarchy — Episcopate or Presbyter ate — however 
useful these features may be in their place, but as 
the company of faithful Christians, the congregation 



vi PREFACE. 

of all believers. On earth it has been sometimes 
hidden, often few, occasionally visited with exter- 
minating persecution, yet never extinguished. " Lo, 
I am with you always to the end of the world," is 
her inherited promise. "Where two or three are 
met together in my name, there am I in the midst 
of them," is her experience. " I give unto them 
eternal life, and none shall pluck them out of my 
hand," is her safety. All our visible churches are 
merely provisional or temporary arrangements, till 
that which is perfect comes ; that is, till " the mani- 
festation of the sons of God." Then that which is 
provisional shall be done away, and that which is 
perfect will alone remain. 

It is in vain that we belong to the outer and- 
visible, if we be strangers to the inner and true 
church. May we feel it personally important to 
edify the latter, and less and less our interest or duty 
to quarrel about the former. 

The author hopes to present in another volume 
The Church of the Patriarchs, as soon as he can spare 
time to arrange it. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE BIBLE 1 

H. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY . . 41 

m. CREATION . . . . .79 

IV. THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST 106 

V. THE CURSE 133 

VI. REDEMPTION 156 

VH. MISSIONARY DUTY . . . .186 

VIII. THE PROTO -MARTYR . . . 216 

IX. THE HEART AS IT IS . . . 245 

X. BAPTISM DOTH SAVE . . . 274 

XI. THE VICTORY OF FAITH . . . 307 

XH. HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP . . . 333 

Xni. ARARAT ; OR, THE FIRST MORNING OF 

A NEW DAY 359 



VI 11 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



X1Y. THE RAINBOW 



388 



XV. THE THREE FOREFATHERS 



412 



xvi. Enoch's prophecy 



438 



xvn. Enoch's creed 471 

XVIII. THE BABEL-BUILDERS ; OR, UNSANC- 

TIFIED JUDGMENTS . . . 499 

XIX. THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL . . . 527 

XX. FAITH AND HOPE . . . 560 

XXI. FULL ASSURANCE . . . 7 585 



THE 



CHUECH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BIBLE. 

" Hast thou ever heard 
Of such a book ? The Author, God himself ; 
The subject, God and man, salvation, life, 
And death — eternal life — eternal death." 

" All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." — 1 Tim. iii. 15, 16. 

" Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our 
earning." — Rom. xv. 4. 

We have in the existing church what the 
Church before the Flood had not, a written rule 
Df faith. This is an inestimable privilege. 
;f God, who at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by 
bis Son.' 5 We have all that Adam, and Enoch, 
and Noah had, and very much more, far more 
clearly revealed. In this introductory chapter 

B 



2 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

let me make some remarks on this precious 
Record. 

The Bible is not a disquisition on astronomy, 
or philosophy, or geology, or other science. 
Man can wait the slow process of discovery in 
science, but he cannot wait a single moment for 
an answer to the question, 66 What must I do to 
be saved?" because in that moment his soul 
may be required of him. It is, therefore, wisely 
and beneficently arranged, that the results of 
science shall be from slow discovery ; and it is 
no less beneficently arranged that the disclosure 
of the way of salvation shall be instant and 
complete. The Bible, therefore, leaves the Co- 
pernican and the Ptolemaic systems of astronomy 
to settle their disputes, and replies primarily to 
the anxious question, " What must I do to be 
saved ? " The Bible is not a discovery ; it is a 
revelation. Between these two words there is a 
broad and important distinction. A discovery 
is that which man makes, and which man can 
enlarge ; a revelation is that which God gives, 
and which God alone can add to. When Co- 
lumbus found America, he made a discovery; 
and subsequent voyagers have left mankind 
better acquainted with that continent than he 



THE BIBLE. 



3 



himself was : it was a discovery that man could 
make,, and that man can still mend. But the 
Bible is not a discovery which has been reached 
by the soaring wing, or by the sustained and per- 
severing industry of man ; it is a revelation that 
comes down from heaven in all its beauty and 
in all its completeness, so much so, that he 
that attempts to add to it takes the place of God, 
and u shows himself as if he were God/ 5 profess- 
ing to mend what is already perfect, and to add 
to that which God has pronounced complete. 

The Bible is an eminently popular book ; it 
is emphatically the book, not for the college, nor 
for the scientific hall, but for the people. The 
figures which it employs are drawn from the 
most familiar and every-day experience ; the 
colouring spread over it is, in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, fresh as it was when it was first given, and 
is still fitted to attract and arrest the multitude, 
Human works endure, and are popular, in pro- 
portion as they partake of this universality. The 
Bible has the great element of catholicity in its 
bosom ; it is a book not for a coterie, nor for a 
sect, nor for a party, but for all mankind. And 
while it speaks to all at once^ it speaks to each 
separately, with no less distinctness and em- 
b 2 



4 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



phasis. The great congregation can listen to 
God's voice sounding in the Bible ; the solitary 
man in his closet can hear its sweet chimes in his 
soul also ; it provokes a resonant echo in the heart 
of the humblest listener. Like God's own omni- 
presence, the Bible reaches to the loftiest spirit, 
and prescribes the laws and the direction of his 
orbit ; and it descends to the humblest artisan, 
and tells him at once, in its own majestic and 
paternal tones, how to be happy and holy for 
ever. All history, all criticism, all hermeneutics, 
(if I may use a long word,) all archaeology, are 
not, and may not be, substitutes for the Bible, 
nor do they add to the Bible ; they are meant 
simply to show the Bible in its own exclusive 
and dominant position. When the critic sits 
down to illustrate the Bible, he simply tries to 
put it before us just as it was put before the 
Corinthians, so that we may, from the standing- 
point which the Corinthian Christian and the 
Roman Christian had, see the same glory sweep 
by, and hear the same voice speak from the 
heavens to our listening and obedient heart. 

The Bible is composed of a great many books, 
and books that are cumulative (if I may use the 
expression) and progressive. Genesis gives the 



THE BIBLE. 



5 



unity, the origin, the apostasy of our race,, and 
the promise of a Saviour. Leviticus, Exodus, 
and Deuteronomy are the outlines and shadows 
of the approaching Sun, seen by Levi, in some 
such way as the sun in the firmament is seen by 
the astronomer through a smoked lens : the eve 
of the one is not able to endure its intensity ; the 
minds of the others were not prepared for the 
full blaze, the meridian splendour, of the Sun 
of righteousness. Job is a specimen of the deep 
yearning and craving of the human heart, amid 
the waves and billows of sorrow and affliction, 
for a comforter and redeemer. Solomon is a 
manifestation of human wisdom in its loftiest 
discoveries, but of its unsatisfactoriness in them 
all. Ruth is for the genealogy of the Saviour — 
important, because it presents to us a beautiful 
link in that genealogy. Isaiah brings into the 
desolations of the Captivity the splendours of a 
glorious day. Ezekiel gives us visions of the 
future temple, the spread and triumphs of the 
kingdom of the Messiah. Haggai sees the tem- 
ple lighted up with a glory to which the first 
temple was a stranger. Malachi, like an early 
morning star, heralds in the approaching rays of 
the Sun, saying, " Into you that fear my name 



6 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

shall tlie Sun of righteousness rise; 55 and, after 
four hundred years of silence, John the Baptist 
appears as if he were Malachi risen from the 
dead, responding to his prophecy, by saying, 
"Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
the sins of the world. 55 The Gospels unfold 
the biography of the Son of God. The Acts of 
the Apostles carry into practical development 
the functions, the attributes, and powers with 
which they were invested ; and the Apocalypse 
is the close of all the glories of the past, the 
prophetic dawn of all the splendours of the 
future, telling us in words, sure as rising and 
setting suns, that as the world began with para- 
dise, the world shall close with paradise again. 

In looking at the whole Bible we find the 
following data : — It contains in all sixty-six 
books, by forty different writers. It presents 
history, biography, parables, letters, proverbs, 
poems, speeches. Some of them were written 
by kings, some by shepherds, some by herdsmen, 
some by vine-dressers, some by tent-makers, 
some by a physician. They were composed in 
different circumstances, in successive centuries, in 
various phases of joy, of sorrow, of affliction, 
and of tribulation. Between the first writer in 



THE BIBLE. 



7 



Genesis, and the last writer in the Apocalypse, 
1500 years intervened. Now, must we not con- 
clude, in tlie exercise of common sense, that in 
men of so varying professions, placed in so vary- 
ing circumstances, subject each to his peculiar 
and idiosyncratic trials, there is evidence of 
special inspiration, when we find that without 
collusion there is perfect concord, without pre- 
concert perfect harmony, that without design or 
adjustment their notes, not from nearness but 
relation, should constitute the varied harmonies 
of heaven ? Is it not evidence that there must 
have been struck, to guide and to develope them, 
one grand key-note, Christ,- and him crucified ? 
In one part of this wondrous book the scholar is 
addressed in language so exquisitely beautiful, 
in thoughts so freshly drawn from the depths of 
our human experience, that he listens, and ad- 
mires as he listens. In another part, the weary 
artisan who has returned from his day's work, 
hears the voice of his Father, and finds that voice 
his noblest opiate and his sweetest lullaby. In 
one part the Bible speaks to babes ; in another 
part it speaks to grown men. It draws its 
imagery from agriculture, from commerce, from 
politics, from poetry, from nature, and from art ; 



8 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

so that there is not a human being, however 
strange and peculiar his taste, who shall not find 
in this wonderful book the common Christianity 
conveyed in those formulas and figures, and 
illustrated by those analogies which come home 
to his heart with the greatest emphasis, and con- 
vey most vividly the great truths that belong to 
his everlasting peace. If a shepherd wants to 
read his Bible, he will find allusions that will 
make it familiar to him as household words : if 
a king sits down on his throne to read the Bible, 
he will meet with illustrations there that are meet 
for the inmate of the largest and the most splendid 
palace ; if the artisan, or the sailor, or the soldier, 
read the Bible, he will see the same truths illus- 
trated by imagery with which he is practically 
familiar, and so coming home to his heart, with 
a power so real and so decided, that he will feel 
that never book spake like this book, as it was 
said of old of its author, " Never man spake like 
this man." 

But it is very remarkable, that, while there is 
all that is needed to edify, all that is fitted to 
charm and to instruct, there is not one word 
adapted merely to gratify an itching curiosity^ 
If I had been writing a book that I wanted to 



THE BIBLE. 



9 



be very popular, and if I had been desirous of 
using the most likely elements, I should have 
taken care to give responses to the thousand and 
one curious questions that humanity ever asks 
and never comprehends. If I had been narrat- 
ing, even as a human being, and wishing to 
speak sincerely, that Lazarus rose from the dead, 
I should have tried to throw in some expressions 
or sketches of his wonderful experience when 
separated from the body — not that it would 
have done man good, but it would have gra- 
tified his curiosity, and made my work accept- 
able. But upon that and kindred subjects the 
Bible is silent. " Lord, are there many that be 
saved?" How often have we asked this ques- 
tion ! How fine was the answer — " Strive to 
enter in at the strait gate ! " Again, the question 
is asked, "What shall this man do?" Hear 
the answer — " What is that to thee ? Follow 
thou me." The silence of Scripture is some- 
times its most thrilling eloquence. The blanks 
and chasms in Scripture — the questions it leaves 
unanswered — the problems it bequeaths un- 
settled — the perplexities it leaves unsolved, are 
to my mind some of the strongest and brightest 
credentials that the Bible has God for its author, 



10 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

truth, for its matter, everlasting joy and felicity 
for its happy issue. 

The Bible consists not merely of so many 
individual books, but of two great divisions. 
The Old and New Testament are the two great 
sections of the book called the Bible. What is 
the difference between them? The Old Testa- 
ment is a lock with wards and interstices, far 
more complicated than Chubb or Bramah could 
contrive ; and the New Testament is the ex- 
quisitely cut key, which, applied to the lock, 
completely unlocks it, and opens a door of en- 
trance to the bright vision of light and immor- 
tality, clearly brought to view. The Old and 
New Testament are different portraits of the 
same great and glorious original. The Old 
Testament is the portrait seen by moonlight; 
the New Testament is the same portrait seen 
by sunlight ; the one hazy and dim, but still 
real; the other bright and illuminated, like a 
noon-day landscape, on which the minutest and 
most majestic features may be read and under- 
stood by him that runs while he reads. 

We have these books in all their integrity. 
Oh ! what a ground of thankfulness to God is a 
Bible, — unmutilated, unshortened, uncorrupted 



THE BIBLE. 



11 



The Socinian has tried to abstract from it that 
which is Divine ; the Romanist has added to it 
that which is human ; but we have this book still 
in its inspired integrity ; it is here that one can 
see a providence in our divisions. While our 
differences may be the evidences of human 
weakness, they have been over-ruled by God to 
be the means of the Bible's preservation. If a 
Church of England man had tried to put in a 
word in favour of Episcopacy, the Independent 
would have pounced upon him and shown the 
fraud; if the Scotch Churchman had tried to put 
in a word in favour of his Confession of Faith, 
the English Churchman would have exposed 
him in the light of noon-day ; if the Baptist had 
interpolated a word about plunging, the Psedo- 
baptist would have instantly shown it should be 
sprinkling. Thus our little divisions, which are 
the evidences of our frailty, have been over- 
ruled, in the good providence of God, to be the 
means of keeping in its unmutilated integrity 
and perfection that blessed book which is the 
anchorage ground of us all. 

The very existence of the Bible has always 
appeared to me a perpetual miracle. This book, 
lying upon the pulpit, or upon the desk, or upon 



12 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the table j is itself a glorious sign. Suppose 
there were to come into our presence a man who 
had lived eighteen hundred years — suppose he 
had been cast into the sea a dozen times, and 
was never drowned — suppose arsenic and prussic 
acid had been administered to him, according to 
the best prescriptions, and yet he was never 
poisoned — suppose he had been riddled with 
bullets, and yet is not numbered with the slain 
— if that man were to march into a room 
this day, and to present himself before us, 
what would be inferred? That God's omni- 
presence must have been his shield, and God's 
omnipotence his safety at every moment. This 
book, the Bible, has been cast into the flames, 
and it is not burned ; it has been thrown into 
the sea, and it is not drowned ; it has been 
buried in the pestilential notes of Douay, 
and it has been seized in the bearlike grasp 
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and yet it 
is not crushed. At this day it comes before 
us in primaeval purity and majesty, and thus 
eighteen centuries demonstrate what Jesus ut- 
tered in the first century, " Thy word, O Lord, 
is truth." But more than this. There are certain 
books called the classics, written in Greek and 



THE BIBLE. 



13 



Latin, some of them beautifully written, many of 
them with intermingling corruptions, and ap- 
peals to what is worst and most wicked in our 
common humanity. Now, it is remarkable that 
unregenerate human nature would any day pre- 
fer a book written by man that will minister to its 
corruptions, to a book written by God that re- 
bukes those corruptions. Yet the classics, those 
books that man tried to save, the books that he 
loved because they prophesied good about him, 
the books that he laboured, and suffered, and 
expended to protect and preserve, are all of them 
mutilated, and many of them totally lost ; while 
this book, which all men hated till they came 
under its supremacy, and which all men per- 
secuted, because, like the prophet, it prophesied 
evil concerning them, remains in all its per- 
fection and integrity to this day. Does not 
this prove that God has been with this book 
from the beginning until now ? 

The Church of Some tells us, we got the Bible 
from her, and that we ought, therefore, to take 
her opinion of it, her limits, restrictions, and 
counsel in the interpretation of it. I suspect, 
however, that we rather snatched it from her 
grasp, than got it as a present from her gener- 



14 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

osity ; but at all events, in whatever way we got 
it, we are certainly most thankful to God that so 
blind a woman kept in her hand for us so bright 
a light, and left it for our guidance ; and all our 
regret is, that she was so blind as not to see its 
light herself. But that same Church turns round 
and says, "As you got the Bible from us," or, 
to put it in a phraseology not uncommon, "As 
you are indebted to the Church for the Bible, 
you ought to take the Church's interpretation of 
it." I must demur, " The apostles got the Old 
Testament from the Jews ; but if they had taken 
the Jews' interpretation of the Bible, they would 
have joined with them in crucifying the Lord of 
glory. We will take the Bible from you, but 
we will not take your interpretation of it." 
Suppose a will is brought into a court of justice, 
and that two persons who signed the will are 
brought forward as witnesses to the genuineness 
and authenticity of the document : the moment 
they have given their testimony, one of the 
witnesses, very communicative and obliging, 
says to the judge, "My lord, now that we have 
signed the will, and shown it to be genuine, and 
handed it to you in this court, an uncorrupted 
and authentic document, I beg to inform your 



THE BIBLE. 



15 



lordship that the will leaves 500/. to my friend, 
250/. for myself, and 1000/. for somebody else." 
What would the judge say? " Gentlemen, you 
are excellent witnesses to the genuineness of the 
will, but the interpretation of the document you 
must leave to other parties altogether." If the 
Church of Rome insists that she did convey the 
document to us in all its integrity, we say, "We 
are exceedingly obliged to you ; but if you insist 
that you are therefore to interpret the document, 
we tell you at once that you come into court sim- 
ply as witnesses to its genuineness ; we cannot 
accept you in any office in which you have not 
even presented yourselves, or, at least, in which 
you ought not to present yourselves." But if she 
will insist that we shall not have the Bible unless 
we take her opinion of it, we must tell her that 
we will dispense with all her services ; that we 
extremely regret it ; but that faithfulness to the 
Author of the Bible necessitates it. For it 
happens that the Church of Rome was not the 
only Church during the last eighteen centuries. 
There was the Greek Church that she separated 
from, or that she says separated from her, about 
the sixth century: and there was an Anglo- 
Saxon Church in England, before a Popish 



16 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

monk came over. The Romish Church is not 
the old Church, she is quite mistaken, she gets 
into the dotage of age, instead of asserting the 
evidence of age ; there was a church here that 
protested against her novelties long before the 
days of Hildebrancl, and even of Gregory the 
Great : there was also in Scotland the old Culdee 
Church, the Syriac Church, and other sections 
of the Church universal scattered throughout the 
whole world. I will apply to one of these. 
Everybody is trying to find out new plans for 
supplying this great metropolis of ours with 
pure water ; suppose one company came to me, 
and said, (I do not say they do say so ; I am 
only putting the case hypothetically,) " We will 
supply your family with water, but we have been 
persuaded, by careful chemical investigation, 
that to cover the interior of the conduit pipes 
with a solution of arsenic is one of the most 
wholesome practices that the ingenuity of man 
has ever devised. If you will have water from 
our company, you must take it in our pipes, 
use our ducts and our cisterns, or not one 
drop shall you get for breakfast, dinner, or 
tea." What would be our answer ? " Gentle- 
men, you have a right to entertain your opinion 



THE BIBLE. 



IT 



about the excellency of arsenic, but I am con- 
vinced that it is very poisonous, and if you 
will not give me water without arsenic, I "will 
apply to another company,, that will give me 
clean water without any such chemical pre- 
paration as you have prescribed/*' So with the 
Church of Borne. If she will not give us pure 
water, just as it wells from the fountain of living 
water, we will turn our backs, and have recourse 
to other springs that God has dug in his bene- 
ficence, and get living water from the ocean and 
fountain of life, not only without arsenic, but, 
what is nearly as good, without money and 
without price. 

It is a most interesting and precious fact, that 
the Bible is now written, or, if we prefer a more 
hk lern expression, printed. The commentaries 
of man vary ; they change their form and their 

: a like the clouds that follow the setting sun ; 
but the great rock remains the same when the 
shadow is upon it, and after the shadow is 
gone. The sand-drifts rise and float about the 
pyramids, but the pyramids remain. The com- 
ments and controversies of man, of divines, of 
ministers, of laymen, have raised the smoke, and 
stirred the dust : but they have been all outside 
c 



18 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the book, which still remains a stereotype, a 
fixture, like the Rock on which it is spread for 
reading — the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
ever. 

-flf the truths of Christianity had been left till 
now to oral transmission, they had become a com- 
plete travesty by this time. Like a snow-ball 
starting from the mountain-top, it would have 
rolled downward, accumulating all sorts of 
rubbish, till it became one frozen and useless 
mass, lying in the valley below. But, blessed 
be God, whatever is changed, the Bible is the 
same ; whatever creeds have been mended, the 
Bible remains ; whatever new schools have been 
instituted, the Bible abides, it is still an accessible 
fixture ; " The grass wither eth, and the flower 
fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth for 
ever." 

The Bible is pronounced by an apostle to be 
6e67rvev(no9, inspired, or breathed into, by God. 
We do not here enter upon the nature and the 
limits of inspiration. I am one of those who 
unfortunately differ from some very great 
men, to whom I am not fit to hold the candle, 
who do not believe that every word in this 
blessed book is the very best for the purpose 



THE BIBLE. 



19 



that could have been selected — that the Bible 
is verbally inspired as a record by God ; so that 
when I listen to it I listen as if to the spoken 
word of God, sounding like a voice amid the 
gorges of the hills, reverberated in a thousand 
repetitions, but every echo and reverberation the 
voice of my God and of my Father. 

This holy book is the only image of himself 
that God has bequeathed to mankind. There 
is one exception, if I may use the expression, 
to a part of the second interdict of his law ; and 
it is the Bible, which is the very likeness 
of God. I could never bear to see pictures of 
our blessed Lord in churches ; I think they 
are not lawful. When one sees a picture of 
Christ, what is it really ? A man upon the 
cross : so was the thief at each side of him. I 
can see one bearing a tree, but not bearing my 
sins ; — I can see an agonized sufferer, but I 
cannot see the satisfying God; — I can see the 
outer man, which is the least important, but of 
the inner man, where the curse was felt, where 
the satisfaction was made, where the atonement 
lay, no picture (and I have seen the choicest 
and noblest on the continent of Europe) can 
convey to me any just or adequate idea. But 
c 2 



20 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

we have one true sketch of Christ, in the 53rd 
of Isaiah : this is the true crucifix. I wish we 
could break down all the wooden or priestly 
ones, and substitute Isaiah's in its stead. The 
whole Bible itself is the image of Christ, as he 
is the image of God. It is remarkable that the 
Church which has worshipped images of wood, 
and stone, and brass, and silver, and gold, — 
images of men that were not, images of men 
that were not worthy to be, and images of men 
that ought not to have had images at ail, — has 
never, in this rage for image worship, thought 
of worshipping the likeliest image of God, the 
Bible ! Why ? Because if she had bow r ed 
down to adore it, its great voice would have 
said, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God^ 
and him only shalt thou serve." 

This blessed book, while it is thus the voice 
of God, is yet given in varied strains. If the 
Bible had been written as a large didactic essay, 
or a very eloquent oration, it would have been 
nothing like the book that it now is. The very 
fact that Paul's style is in it, and that Peter's 
style, and John's style, and Matthew's style, in 
all their varieties, are perfectly preserved, but 
all inspired by the same breath, makes the 



THE BIBLE. 



21 



Bible come home to my bosom and business 
with far greater and richer effect. We have all 
the variations of this harmony, but one key- 
note ; we have manifold instruments to con- 
stitute the choir, but all the instruments are 
pervaded by the breath of the Almighty. 

The Bible has been translated. The trans- 
lation of the Bible is " a great fact/' that Pro- 
testants glory in. It is one of our deepest con- 
victions, that the Bible should be in a language 
understood by the people. It was translated 
by Tindale, in 1530 ; by Coverdale, in 1535 ; 
by Cranmer, in 1539 ; at Geneva, in 1560 ; by 
the bishops, in 1568 ; and by the celebrated 
authorized translators, as they are called, the 
most accomplished scholars and eminent divines 
of their day, in the year 1611. With all its 
faults, our translation is matchless ; and (what 
is far better than any eulogium of mine) all the 
alterations that have taken place in its opponent 
and rival the Douay version — I have followed 
them, and do not speak at random — are approxi- 
mations to the authorized translation of 1611. It 
is very singular that, wherever there is a differ- 
ence between the two versions, (although I 
would engage to prove to any Boman Catholic 



22 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

that the creed of Pius IV. and the canons of the" 
Council of Trent are wrong, out of his own 
version,) there is often seen not a little inclin- 
ation in the Douay translation to help a very 
crotchetty dogma, that had been established 
some hundred years before. 

We add one more remark, which we should 
never fail to do when speaking of the defects of 
our translation, — that if all these defects in our 
own translation were adjusted, and the words 
literally and strictly rendered, it would only 
tell more markedly in favour of evangelical and 
Protestant Christianity. 

This blessed book is circulated the most ex- 
tensively of all books. It is, by the blessing 
of God, the cheapest book ; it is, in the pro- 
vidence of God, the most widely circulated 
book. It is found in the soldier's knapsack on 
the field of battle ; it is discovered in the sailor's 
hammock as his vessel rolls upon the stormy 
sea ; it is to be seen in the pedlar's pack ; it 
is in the cabinet of princes, and in the cottage 
of peasants ; the sun never sets upon its glo- 
rious page. Its words have gone out into all 
the earth ; it has been translated into every 
tongue : its grand promises mingle with the 



THE BIBLE. 



23 



murmurs of the Black Sea, and with the chimes 
of the Mediterranean ; and increasing numbers 
are listening every day to that great voice that 
tells them how to live and be holy, how to die 
and be happy. Like a stream that has risen 
from a distant spring, it pursues its course, 
sometimes amid obstructions, sometimes under 
ground j sometimes above, but always making a 
belt of rich vegetation, flowers, and verdure 
beside it, until it sweeps on, reflecting the sheen 
of palaces and the smoke of cottages, and is lost 
only in that unsounded ocean towards which 
we are voyagers, and pilgrims, and travellers. 
There is not a child upon its mother's knee, or a 
queen upon her father's throne, that is not a 
happier child or a happier woman that this 
book was written, translated, and circulated. 

The Bible is perfectly sufficient for all the 
great purposes for which it was meant. Both 
the Protestant and the Roman Catholic admit 
that the Bible is sufficient ; but both allow that it 
is not always efficient. A book may be sufficient 
for a great purpose, but it may fail to be efficient ; 
that is, it may be sufficient to make us wise unto 
salvation, but it may not always actually do so. 
But the two parties give different solutions : the 



24 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Roman Catholic Church says the fault is in the 
book, and therefore she adds to it, in the hope 
of making it perfect; the Protestant says the 
fault is in the reader of the book, and he should 
pray that God may make him capable of being 
enlightened by it. The Roman Catholic adds 
to this sufficient book, in order to make it an 
efficient one ; the Protestant prays to the Author 
of the book, that he would make the heart of the 
reader susceptible of the truth, and that thus 
the sufficient book may become an efficient book. 
The Protestant says, the way is to open the blind 
man's eyes ; the Roman Catholic says, No, it is 
to let him remain blind as he is, but to increase 
the light ten thousand-fold. But all the light in 
the skies will not make a blind man see. He 
only that said " Ephphatha " to the ear, and 
u Be opened 55 to the eyes, can enable the blind- 
est to see the tiniest light, and even that light 
will be a guide that will lead him to glory. 

The Bible is a most intelligible book. It is 
the plainest of all books that were ever written. 
There are parts of it not so plain as others, 
because there are parts having different purposes 
from others; but yet if the humblest artisan, 
the poorest peasant, fail to find the way to 



THE BIBLE. 25 

heaven in his Bible, the fault is not in the book, 
but in his heart, his conscience, or his intellect, 
which the Author of the book should be appealed 
to instantly to remove. It is argued, if this be 
so, why do not all denominations of Christians 
agree ? My answer is, they do agree in the most 
important things, and it is matter of fact that 
they differ only in what are called non-essentials, 
or subordinate things. There cannot be unity 
in the visible church until there be perfect 
hearts to read- the perfect book: the reason 
therefore why we come to different conclu- 
sions upon matters of detail is, not that the 
perfect book has ceased to be perfect, but that 
the once holy heart has lost its polarity, and 
come to be corrupt and defiled. We have often 
heard this argument, " Is it not a fact that our 
laws require lawyers and judges, in order to 
expound them? and so, by parity of reasoning, 
the Bible should have a body of men, called 
priests or presbyters, councils or pope^ or what- 
ever you like, who should have the monopoly of 
the explanation of the book." If this be so, it 
is a very odd thing that this order of men is not 
laid down as invested with infallible functions. 
In the next place, there is one order of men, the 



26 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Romish priesthood, the very order that makes 
this objection, that are the least competent of all 
to do it ; and for the plain reason, that they are 
not free to interpret honestly. If I submit a 
law of our most gracious queen to our judges, 
how do they interpret it ? According to its plain 
and obvious meaning. But if I submit a verse 
to a Roman Catholic priest, he does not interpret 
it according to its plain and obvious meaning, 
because he is bound by a previous law; he is 
solemnly sworn that he will not interpret it 
otherwise than in that sense which the Church 
holds, and by the unanimous consent of the 
Fathers. If the judges were to say, " We under- 
take to interpret the laws, but we do so only 
according to the sense of the President of the 
French Republic, or according to the authorities 
published in Berlin or Vienna," I would beg to 
be excused from their interpretation altogether, 
and would rather interpret the law myself, ac- 
cording to its plain, grammatical, and obvious 
sense. The priest of Rome, or any one who 
takes his place, in using such a parallel as this 
for argument, should remember that he is bound 
to interpret Scripture by a previous interpret- 
ation, an analogy which I could show you, if 



THE BIBLE. 



27 



time permitted, is not actually available. There 
is no order of men appointed in the Bible for 
this purpose, and therefore we need not expect 
to succeed in such a mode of understanding the 
Bible. But, I have said, the fault is in the im- 
perfect heart, not in the perfect book ; and it is 
a wicked thing to lay the blame upon God, 
when man fails to understand the Bible. To 
show how completely this is the case, let me 
take what might be thought the most intelli- 
gible of all documents, an act of parliament. 
Take, for instance, the last act on the papal 
aggression. It was first laid before the law- 
officers of the crown; they scrutinized it, and 
weighed every word and syllable according to 
the limit of their instructions, and drew up the 
bill. It was afterwards submitted to the House 
of Commons. After it had been cut and pared, 
altered and improved, it was pronounced, by the 
vast majority of six hundred men in the House 
of Commons, a complete document, — as complete 
as human skill could make it. It was carried to 
the House of Lords ; they touched it up a little, 
improved it here, deducted there, added else- 
where ; and then they said it was complete. The 
document was submitted to her Majesty ; she 



28 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

appended her royal signature, and the act is the 
law of the land. Archbishop Wiseman will say 
of one clause, it means this ; and Dr. Pusey, it 
means that ; and the Bishop of Exeter, it means 
something else; and Dr. McNeile will assert 
that it means something different from all three, 
and Mr. Bennet will differ from all four. In 
this case, we have a document which, if any 
document can be pronounced to be so, should be 
perfect ; yet it is not twelve months in existence 
before the Cardinal drives a coach and four 
through its clauses. And why? Not that the 
clause was bad or imperfect, but that some of its 
interpreters want to gratify their own preposses- 
sions, interests, or convictions, and so set to work 
to screw and twist and interpret the queen's 
English, justly or otherwise, into that meaning 
which chimes in best with their preferences. 
This is the case with the Bible. You read the 
Bible, and you take with you your prejudices ; 
and instead of making it pass like a ploughshare 
through those prejudices, you sift and search 
and turn it over to get something that will 
sustain and back you in holding them. 

It has been argued against the Bible, that it 
contains great mysteries. It does contain many 



THE BIBLE. 



29 



mysteries ; but there is a distinction between 
that which is above our comprehension, and that 
which is against our comprehension. The doc- 
trine of the Trinity is a doctrine above our com- 
prehension ; the dogma of transubstantiation is 
a dogma against our senses and our understand- 
ing. We reject the latter, and we accept upon 
authority the former. But if the Bible had no 
mysteries in it, it would be without one of the 
strongest proofs of its Divine origin ; for if it be 
a picture of the infinite, we must expect in it 
touches that the finite will not be able to grasp ; 
if it be a declaration of the incomprehensible, 
we must expect passages in it that finite being 
mil not be able to comprehend. Objector to 
the mysteries in the Bible, are there no mysteries 
about you ? Here is one of the greatest mysteries, 
how, by a thing called volition in my mind,T 
can move my hand up and down to the right or 
to the left ? How is it that my volition, that 
transcendental, airy, undefinable, inappreciable 
thing, can act upon the muscles of the body ? If 
you object to mysteries in the Bible, and admit 
the existence of a God, and admit that he is 
eternal, will you explain to me what eternity is ? 
Can any man explain to me what this means, — 



30 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

millions, and millions, and millions of years 
elapsing, and yet I am no nearer to the end 
and no farther from the beginning than after 
one single year had elapsed ? Do you com- 
prehend that ? Do you comprehend what omni- 
presence is, — a being here, there, everywhere ; 
whose iC centre is everywhere, and whose cir- 
cumference is nowhere?" If mysteries in the 
Bible make you reject the Bible, equal mysteries 
in natural theology will make you reject the 
existence of a God, and you will be driven in 
self-defence to plunge into that vacuum in which 
man can neither swim, nor stand, nor fly, — that 
freezing vacuum called Atheism: so that, in my 
judgment, between accepting the evangelical 
Christianity of the Bible, and plunging into the 
vacuum of the Atheist, there is no resting-spot 
for the sole of the foot of man. Mysteries are 
in the blades of grass ; mysteries are in grains 
of sand; there is a mystery in every pulsation 
of the heart. Can you tell me why your heart 
beats ? You can give me no answer. I can 
answer you, but I must go to that book which 
you are rejecting because of its mystery. It is 
the rebound to the touch of the finger of God. 
It is a most wretched notion that some entertain, 



THE BIBLE. 



SI 



that God wound up all these machines, called 
men, like watches, set them going, and left them 
to make the best of their way through the long 
and dusty road of life. I do not believe this. 
I believe that God is at every step of my move- 
ment, that he meets me at every corner, that he 
speaks to me in every difficulty, and that he will 
never leave me nor forsake me ; that his pro- 
vidence is over me, as it is over the mightiest and 
noblest of his creatures. Mysteries ! We can- 
not know anything without coming in contact 
with mysteries. I believe all heaven will be 
spent in traversing the known and plunging into 
the unknown. Eternity will be the unknown, 
evermore becoming the known as it passes by. 
I rise in knowledge as I ascend a mountain, the 
higher I climb the more miseen pinnacles and 
crags appear. Every truth that comes within 
the horizon of man's knowledge, brings twenty 
mysteries in its train, till the more we know, the 
more we see remains to be known, and the high- 
est scholar, like the highest Christian, becomes 
the very humblest and lowliest of mankind. 

Leslie has written a most admirable book, call- 
ed " A Short and Easy Method with Deists ; " 
in which he lays down three or four useful general 



32 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

principles. With regard to miracles 1 , the basis of 
evidence, he says : 1. That a miracle must be a 
matter of fact that the senses can judge of. 2. 
That a miracle must be done publicly in the 
face of the world. 3. There must be public 
monuments in remembrance of it. 4. Such 
monuments must appear at the time of the 
events. 

No false miracle can stand these tests ; the 
miracles of the Bible can. Do you think that 
Moses could have persuaded half a million of 
people that they were fed by a powder from the 
clouds, and that they got water from the rending 
of a rock, if it had never been true ? Or could 
he have made them accept a book as a Divine 
record, which stated these things, when in their 
actual and personal experience they had met 
with no such things whatever ? The credulity 
required to disbelieve the Pentateuch is ten 
times greater than all the supposed credulity 
required to accept it ; and it may be proved that 
the most credulous of all men is the man that 
believes that the Bible is not the book of God. 
But what is a miracle ? A miracle does not 
prove the book to be from God : it proves it to 
be supernatural ; it is simply an arrest of the 



THE BIBLE. 



83 



continuity or order of things, calling upon man 
to listen. The book itself may be from below, 
or it may be from above : it must be more than 
human if nature has been made to pause in 
order to hear what is said. Its divinity depends 
on its interior contents. But there is another 
proof besides miracles ; I mean prophecy. The 
old deists used to say that prophecy was so 
obscure that they could not understand be°'in- 
ning or end of it ; modern deists say it is so plain 
that it must have been written after the events 
took place. How contradictory are these philo- 
sophical sceptics, these free-thinkers ! One has 
only to look at ancient prophecy and compare 
it with modern history, to see how interesting 
and conclusive the evidence is. We find the 
descendants of Shem, Ham, Japheth, Ishmael, 
Babylon, Tyre, and Nineveh, not generally, but 
minutely testifying to the truth of the prophecies 
of God. The Jews sifted through every land, 
like seeds through a sieve, but taking root in 
and incorporated with none ; Nineveh recently 
dug from its grave, (and Nabum said that God 
woidd lay it in its grave,) Tyre awakening from 
its ruins, Babylon emerging from its molten 
masses, the Seven Churches of Asia, the Arab 

D 



84 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

in the desert, the Ishmaelite in the wild, the 
African on his burning sands, — are all standing 
demonstrations of the inspiration of the writers 
of Holy Scripture, and the traveller can see for 
himself that "holy men of old spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

But of all arguments in favour of the truth of 
the Bible, it seems to me that the experimental 
one is the best ; and he that reads it longest, 
studies it deepest, prays over it most earnestly, 
will have a conviction that the Bible is divine, 
that syllogisms will never shake, that supersti- 
tion will never waste, and that infidelity will 
never laugh out of his mind. Let me show what 
I mean by experimental evidence. Suppose I 
send out my servant for a bottle of ink ; the ser- 
vant returns with a bottle of MorrelPs best black 
ink. I ask, how do you know it is ink ? The 
servant answers, " I asked for ink, and the shop- 
man handed a bottle over the counter as ink, and 
' Ink' is on the label outside." That would be 
external evidence. Not satisfied with this, I 
determine to have internal evidence ; and I 
send the ink to a chemist, who analyses a part 
of it, and he says it contains so much gall, so 
much water, so much lamp-black, so much 



THE BIBLE. 



35 



gum, so much vinegar, and other materials ; 
and he says, these are the component parts of 
ink. But not satisfied with this, I dip my pen, 
and write a letter to the friend that I love, 
and I find that it writes beautifully, and the 
ink stands jet black and true ; it remains days 
or years undestroyed, undiscoloured in the 
least degree. This is experimental evidence. 
AVe have all these evidences for the book 
of God. You have historical or external evi- 
dence, in witnesses ; you have the internal evi- 
dence, in the most sifting, searching tests and 
analysis ; and you have the experimental evi- 
dence, that you never trusted a promise and 
that promise failed, you never sought for com- 
fort and that comfort was withheld, you never 
asked for light and that light was not given 
you. Ask the peasant on the hills,— Amd I have 
asked, amid the mountains of Braemar and 
Dee-side, — how do you know that the book is 
Divine, and that the religion you profess is 
true ? You never read Paley ? - - No, I never 
heard of him.'' You have never read Butler ? 
i: No, I have never heard of him." Nor 
Chalmers ? " No, I do not know him." You 
have never read any books on evidence ? u No, 
d 2 



88 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

I have read no such books. 59 Then how do you 
know this book is true ? " Know it ! Tell me 
that the Dee, the Clunie, and the Garawalt, the 
streams at my feet, do not run ; that the winds 
do not sigh amid the gorges of these blue hills ; 
that the sun does not kindle the peaks of Loch- 
ia a- Gar ; tell me my heart does not beat, and 
I will believe you ; but do not tell me the Bible 
is not Divine. I have found its truth illumin- 
ating my footsteps ; its consolations sustaining my 
heart. May my tongue cleave to my mouth's 
roof, and my right hand forget its cunning, if I 
ever deny what is my deepest inner experience, 
that this blessed book is the book of God." 

Let us cleave to the Bible, and suffer nothing 
to be a substitute for it, nothing to supersede it. 
The Church cannot be our Bible. The Fathers 
contradict each other, and they will not do. 
Let us cleave to our Bible, and hold it fast at 
all hazard ; it is the anchorage ground of the 
Church. That Church will ride out the storms 
of coming ages whose anchorage ground is the 
word of God, and the word of God alone. 
Let us read this book, in the full light of every 
other portion of the book. I like exceedingly 
Bagster's Bible, in which he gives such a mass 



THE BIBLE. 



37 



of references. One diamond best cuts another, 
and one text best explains another. We shall 
get immense light from reading the Bible in its 
own light alone. For instance, if you read one 
text, " God tempted Abraham ; " do not stop 
there, but go and read another text, (i No man 
is tempted of God; " then you ascertain the for- 
mer to mean, that God tried Abraham as an ex- 
periment, that God tempts no man to sin. You 
read, in one part, " God repented that he had 
made man ; " to understand that, read another 
text, u God is not man that he should re- 
pent ; 99 thus you understand that God changed 
his movement according to the prescriptions 
of his own wisdom, and not that he is moved 
with human passion. Read the verse, " Work 
out your salvation ; 99 but do not stop there, or 
you will become a mere legalist, but read on, 
" for it is God that worketh in you to will and to 
do of his good pleasure." You will then rise to 
the standard of a real Christian. 

Read the Bible, in the next place, impartially. 
Some read the New Testament and not the 
Old ; some read the promises and not the pre- 
cepts ; some the precepts and not the promises. 
Read the whole book of God. 

Let us read it, in the next place, with special 



38 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

reference to our personal and practical improve- 
ment. Let us read our Bible as sinners seeking 
to be saved in the name of the Lord J esus, with 
constant reference to our personal improve- 
ment. When the Israelites were dying in the 
wilderness, they did not care to try what brass 
the serpent was made of ; they looked at it, and 
were healed. When their children were fed by 
manna in the desert, they did not set their wits 
chemically to analyze it ; they ate it, and lived. 
And when we open our Bible, let us leave 
critics and commentators behind us, and study 
God's blessed word in the spirit of impartial 
investigation and fervent prayer ; and He that 
wrote the book will lead us to the knowledge 
of the book, for, unlike the authors of other 
books, the Author of this is always near to 
explain himself. 

The Bible is a book for the times. It exposes 
all error as it emerges, and contains all season- 
able truth. It finds the human race like a lost 
ship upon a stormy and unknown sea, it 
presents the light that leads them to heaven. 
It relights in the human bosom the lamp of 
truth, rekindles in the heart the love of God, 
restores to the individual the sabbath of the 
soul. It gives dignity to the meanest duty, and 



THE BIBLE. 



39 



it tells us of forgiveness for the greatest sin. 
It sets obedience in the bosom of benedictions, 
and clothes its severest precepts in precious 
promises. To the grandeur of the man it adds 
the glory of the saint. It is a book not made 
by a people, but a book that made a people, and 
will people heaven with its noblest and best 
inhabitants. The Bible is the fountain of our 
asylums, our charities, our hospitals, and the 
thousands and thousands of means of benefiting 
the poor, the needy, and the destitute. How 
much are we indebted to that book ! It con- 
secrates our weddings, it furnishes names for 
our children, it hallows the green sod beneath 
which the ashes of our dead repose. Thousands 
upon thousands declare that to the Bible, under 
God, they are indebted for their richest and 
their deepest joys. I have no fear of the Bible 
perishing. Sickness will not let it go ; sorrow 
will not let it go ; affliction will not part with it. 
Man's aching heart will cling to the Bible as 
the only comforter, in a world in which there 
are such miserable comforters besides. Other 
books are popular for a day, but they are out- 
stripped by the discoveries of man; but the 
Bible is as fresh to-day as it was when it was 



40 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOL 

written. Time writes no wrinkles upon the 
brow of the word of God. In other books the 
discoveries of to-day render foolish the state- 
ments of yesterday. We are obliged to offer 
excuses for Shakspeare, and to say, it was the 
age that made him write so. We must offer 
apologies for Plato and for Cicero, arising from 
the circumstances in which they were placed. 
The Bible disdains apologies ; it asks for none, 
it needs none. The age is behind it — never 
yet has got before it. From Jerusalem, as from 
a distant capital of the world, has gone forth a 
book that has been the delight of the wise, the 
joy of the wretched, the salvation of the guilty, 
the hope of the dying ; the ornament, the 
dignity, the glory, of the human race. 

" Yon cottager who weaves at her own door, 

Pillow and bobbins all her little store, 

She, for her hnmble sphere by nature fit, 

Has little understanding, and no wit ; 

Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true, — 

A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; 

And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, 

A title to a treasure in the skies. 

Oh, happy peasant ! Too unhappy bard ! 

His the mere tinsel, hers the sure reward : 

He, praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come ; 

She, never heard of half a mile from home : 

He, lost in errors his vain heart prefers ; 

She, saved in the simplicity of hers." 



CHAPTER II. 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 

" Sad error this, to take 
The light of nature rather than the light 
Of Revelation for a guide. As well 
Prefer the borrowed light of earth's pale moon 
To the effulgence of the noon-day sun." 

" Science falsely so called."— 1 Tim. vi. 20. 

" Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?" — Job xxxviii. 16. 

The subject I am about to discuss in this 
chapter, is " Genesis and Geology." Genesis 
is the first book in the Bible ; called in the 
Septuagint version, BIBAION or the 

book of the generation or creation of things ; 
called in the original in the words of the book 
itself, and by the Jews who adopted it, iwm3j 
Bereshith, or, in the beginning. Geology is the 
science that deals with the contents of the earth 
on which we tread, the collocation and arrange- 
ment of these contents, and the facts they divulge 
and the lessons they teach. 

In speaking of Genesis and Geology, we start 
with this clear preliminary conviction : Genesis 
is absolutely true ; there is no room for seep- 



42 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

ticism as to its inspiration ; it is pronounced by 
infallibility to be part of the Scripture, given 
by inspiration of God. Genesis, therefore, must 
be true ; upon its own evidences it rests, and 
by facts and proofs and evidences peculiar to 
itself, it can be demonstrated to be perfectly, 
eternally, infallibly true. 

Genesis is a revelation from God ; Geology 
is a discovery of man. A revelation from God 
can be augmented by God only; a discovery 
by man may be improved, matured, advanced, 
ripened, progressively, till the end of the world. 
We therefore assume that Genesis is perfect 
beyond the possibility of contradiction or im- 
provement by us ; and we equally assume that 
Geology, because the discovery of man, and the 
subject of the investigation of man, may be im- 
proved by greater experience and more profound 
acquaintance with those phenomena, which lie 
concealed in the bosom of the earth, waiting for 
man to evoke, explain, and arrange them. I 
am sure, therefore, that Genesis, as God's word, 
is beyond the reach of the blow of the geologist's 
hammer ; or the detection of a single flaw by 
microscope or telescope ; it will stand the 
crucible of the chemist; and the severer the 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



43 



ordeal to which, it is subjected, the more pure, 
resplendent, and beautiful it will emerge, in- 
dicating its origin to be from above, and its 
issue to be the glory of God, and the supreme 
happiness of mankind. Geology has before now 
retraced its steps, Genesis never. Before now 
it has been discovered, that what were thought 
to be facts incontrovertible were fallacies. It is 
found that phenomena described and discussed 
as true, were mistakes and misapprehensions, 
which maturer investigations have disposed of ; 
and therefore I am not speaking dogmatically, 
and without reason, when I say, that while 
Genesis must be true, Geology, having already 
erred, may err again, and some of its very 
loudest assertions, made rashly by those who 
have least acquaintance with its data, may yet 
be proved to be wrong. But certain facts in it 
are now beyond all dispute. Let Geology and 
Genesis be alleged to clash, and the discovery 
from the depths of the earth contradict the text 
from the page of the Bible ; in such a case, I 
would submit first these questions : Are you 
sure that there is a real contradiction between 
the fact of Geology and the text of the Bible, 
or is it only a contradiction between the fact 



44 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

discovered by science, and the interpretation 
that you put upon the text of the Bible ? In the 
next place, if there be in any instance contra- 
diction between a clear text of the Bible and 
a supposed fact or discovery made by the geolo- 
gist, my inference, and without hesitation, is, 
that the geologist must have made a mistake, 
that Moses has made none : and therefore the 
advice we give to the geologist, is, not to say 
God's work beneath contradicts God's word 
without, but just to go back again, read more 
carefully the stony page, excavate more labo- 
riously in the subterranean chambers of the 
earth, and a maturer acquaintance with the facts 
of science may yet elicit the desirable result, 
that there is harmony where we thought discord, 
and perfect agreement where to us there seemed 
only discrepancy and conflict. We have in- 
stances of the possibility of some deductions of 
science being wrong in other departments of it. 
Astronomy was once quoted as contradicting 
the express declarations of the word of God; 
maturer acquaintance with it has proved its 
perfect coincidence. Again, the hieroglyphics 
on the banks of the Nile, as deciphered by Young 
and Champollion, were instanced to pro\e a 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



45 



far greater age of the human race than that de- 
clared in the Bible ; but subsequent investiga- 
tion showed that the hieroglyphics were wrongly 
interpreted, not that God's word was untrue. 
The traditions of the Chinese were viewed as 
upsetting the records of the Mosaic history, but 
subsequent investigation have proved that those 
were wrong, and that God's word is true. 

The Bible, whether we take it in Genesis or 
in the Gospels, contains no error ; it has not a 
single scientific error in it. Yet it was not de- 
signed to teach science ; but wherever it touches 
the province of science, it touches so delicately 
that we can see the main object is to teach men 
how to be saved, while its slight intimations of 
scientific principles or natural phenomena have 
in every instance been demonstrated to be exactly 
and strictly true. If the Bible said in any part 
of it, as the ancient philosopher alleged, that 
there were two suns, one for the upper hemi- 
sphere and the other for the lower, then science 
would prove that Scripture was wrong ; or if 
the Scripture said, as the Hindoos believe, that 
the earth is a vast plain, with concentric seas of 
milk, honey, and sugar, supported by an ele- 
phant, and that the earthquakes and convulsions 



46 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

of the globe are the movements of that elephant 
as he bears it on his back, — then science would 
have proved that to be absurd ; and if Scripture 
had asserted it, such assertion would be demon- 
strably untrue. But the striking fact is that 
you find no such assertion,, nor anything ap- 
proaching such assertions in the Bible. How 
comes it to pass, then, that Moses has spoken so 
purely and truly on science where he does speak, 
and has been silent where there was such a pro- 
vocative to speak, his very silence being as 
significant as his utterance ? How happens it 
that Moses, with no greater education than the 
Hindoo or the ancient philosopher, has written 
his book, touching science at a thousand points^ 
so accurately, that scientific research has dis- 
covered no flaws in it ; and has spoken on 
subjects the most delicate, the most difficult, 
the most involved ; and yet in those investiga- 
tions which have taken place in more recent 
centuries, it has not been shown that he has 
committed one single error, or made one soli- 
tary assertion which can be proved by maturest 
science or the most eagle-eyed philosopher to 
be incorrect, scientifically or historically? The 
answer is, that Moses wrote by the inspiration 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



47 



of God, and therefore what he writes are the 
words of faithfulness and of truth. 

It is an interesting fact, I may state at the 
outset, that as we grow in our acquaintance with 
the facts of Geology, we grow in our conviction 
of their perfect coincidence with the truths of 
Genesis. Genesis is God's tongue telling us 
what things are ; Geology is God's finger point- 
ing out the portraits of things that are : God's 
voice is' audible in Genesis ; God's hand is 
visible in Geology. The first, that is, God's 
word, is perfect, uninjured by a flaw; the 
second, or God's work, is imperfect, tainted by 
sin, and injured by a thousand incidents and 
occurrences, which make it not so clear and 
perspicuous as it was when it came from the 
hand of God, and was pronounced by him to be 
very good. 

The first great fact that I will deal with, and 
the one that really involves the whole subject, 
is the real or supposed antiquity of the earth. 
Is the earth six thousand years old and no more, 
or is it older ? The common interpretation of 
Genesis says, it is six thousand years old ; the 
discoveries of Geology prove to my mind in- 
contestably, that the component material struc- 



48 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

ture of this globe, and much that is under the 
outer crust in this globe, are, it may be, hun- 
dreds of thousands of years old. I believe that 
this earth is not merely six thousand years old ; 
the last collocation of it on its upper surface is 
of that age ; the last arrangement of its surface 
is so, but the materials of the globe, the strata 
that are below, of which I will give you satis- 
factory evidence, demonstrate that it is not 
thousands, but hundreds of thousands of years 
old : and yet I am abundantly satisfied there is 
no contradiction between these, the last dis- 
coveries of Geology, and the first text of 
Genesis, " In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth." 

Supposing, then, we penetrate the surface of 
the globe, or the crust that surrounds it, like 
the skin of an orange or the shell of an egg, we 
find as we descend, successive strata, or, if I may 
use a more homely expression, cakes of different 
formations composed of different substances, 
lying on each other for some nine miles in 
depth, by what geologists call superposition ; 
the one regularly and always (except as we 
account for it on other principles) lying above 
the other. You know what an onion is ; it 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 49 

is composed .of successive coverings ; we take 
off one complete, then another, then another ; 
that onion, if each of its laminae were only of 
a different substance from the other, would 
be in structure almost a complete picture of 
the exterior crust of the globe. First of all, 
and lowest of all, we have the primitive rock, 
which we call granite, the stone of which 
Waterloo Bridge is built, found in Aber- 
deenshire and in parts of Cornwall ; then 
above the granite, the gneiss ; above that, are 
the Silurian beds, called so from the an- 
cient inhabitants of that part of our country, 
the Siluri. We have then the old red sand- 
stone, the coal formation, and, as the last, the 
alluvial deposit, in which remains of the 
human race are found. This order is always 
preserved except there be an interruption, or an 
irruption, or break, by some great convulsion 
or slow process in some past history of the 
globe. Many of these specific formations you 
will notice above the granite, are composed of 
what geologists call lamincz, that is, successive 
leaves deposited one above the other, giving 
proof that the one cake was hardened by long 
lapse of years before the next cake or lamina 

E 



50 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

was deposited on it, and became solidified by 
the same process. You will find too, if you 
look at the lower lamina, or the lower cake, and 
upon its upper surface you will see, evidences 
of the ripple of the waves, washing it, wasting 
it, and rubbing it. You will find again upon 
the same upper surface, the foot-prints of birds, 
the foot-steps also of beasts, and the marks of 
leaves ; and these impressions upon the upper 
surface of the lower one, are exactly trans- 
ferred to the lower surface of the next higher, 
or upper cake, that must therefore have been 
deposited softly and slowly upon it, showing 
that the upper surface of the lower lamina 
or cake, become hardened, had been the scene 
of long traffic, like a turnpike road, and then 
the immense ocean above deposited its de- 
tritus, or its mud, (as you may call it,) very 
gently and gradually upon the upper surface of 
the said lower and long-hardened stratum, and 
received the impression just as the printer's 
page receives the impression from the types, 
thereby proving that a long period intervened 
before the upper laminae fell, and were formed 
upon the lower, and became hardened with time. 
That one fact indicates immense intervals, 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



51 



because it shows that the lower surface had 
been trodden by animals, washed by the waves, 
hardened by the lapse of years, and only after 
it had been completely hardened did another 
stratum fall down upon it in a soft and plastic 
state, and assumed impressions on its lower 
side, from the hardened upper of the leaf 
below, and ultimately it also hardened, and 
became the basis again of other deposits. 

In the third place, there are formations con- 
sisting of very different materials, some derived 
from the older rocks, others from processes 
of very slow progress. To give an illustra- 
tion, granite is, as I said, the primitive, the 
lowest rock ; and next above that is the gneiss. 
This is composed of exactly the very same 
materials as the granite. Upon your looking 
at the granite you will see the felspar, mica, and 
quartz, composing it, are beautifully mingled, 
and blended, and crystallized, sparkling like 
diamonds ; but if you look at the gneiss, or, as 
it is called, the whinstone, you will see that 
the same materials — mica, felspar, and quartz — 
have in its case been reduced into a complete 
powder, which geologists in their technical lan- 
guage call detritus, and has afterward become 
e 2 



52 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

consolidated. This gives evidence that the upper 
surface of the granite had been ground down 
by the washing of waters, or by some ceaseless, 
restless process, and the detritus of the granite 
thus made had been mixed with the mighty 
ocean above, and afterwards gradually deposit- 
ed, and slowly hardened into what is called 
whinstone, or gneiss. This one fact is proof 
that a long period must have elapsed, before 
there was worn off so much dust or detritus 
from the hard granite, as could thus be deposit- 
ed and formed into immense blocks of super- 
position gneiss, hundreds of feet in thickness ; 
irresistible evidence, therefore, that long geo- 
logical periods must have intervened between 
the granite formation and the next above it. 

Let us now turn to the Silurian formations, 
as they are called ; these consist of coral. 
Everybody knows what coral is — the secre- 
tion of very minute insects. It has been actu- 
ally ascertained, that the beds are formed by 
these small insects, at the rate of about six 
inches in a hundred years. Now if we find 
coral beds hundreds of feet in thickness, and 
as we know the rate at which the coral in- 
sect makes its formations, we can easily cal- 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



53 



culate it must have taken hundreds of thousands 
of years to form some of the vast strata that are 
beneath the crust on which we tread, and that 
compose the substance and mass of this globe. 
It is absurd to say the coral was created, it is 
clearly the work of insects. 

Again, the coal formations were once gi- 
gantic forests, and the coal that we now burn 
in our fires was once pine, or oak, or beech, or 
some sort of wood, which has been, by some 
great convulsion, and by moisture, and heat, 
and age, turned into that carbonaceous or 
carboniferous substance, we commonly call coal. 
That coal must have occupied immense peri- 
ods in its formation from wood into coal, is 
obvious from the nature of the process. One of 
the readiest proofs of this is, that a peat-moss is 
a coal-bed in its infancy. There is one peat-moss 
near Stirling, which can be proved to be two 
thousand years since it was a forest, from certain 
Roman remains found in it. It is in the pro- 
cess of becoming carbonized, and would pro- 
bably take ten thousand years more to be 
turned into coal. We, therefore, argue that 
these coal formations prove, incontestably, ad- 
ditional to all I have said, that the globe of 



54 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

which they form a part, has been filling up, 
and shaping itself, under the presidency of Him 
who made and governs it, for hundreds and 
thousands, ay, tens of thousands of years ! 

Another proof of the antiquity of the earth 
may be taken from the chalk cliffs. All, or 
many of us, have visited Ramsgate, Margate, 
and Dover. What do you think those chalk 
cliffs are ? Just vast masses of dead sea-insects 
and shells, turned into that alkaline powder, 
which we term chalk. The microscope of the 
philosopher has been turned upon it, and it is 
now matter of demonstration. It is absurd to 
say, these vast masses were thus created. I 
was lately at Ramsgate, and spent a few hours 
minutely examining these cliffs. You see a 
long line of flints, then a mass of white chalk, 
then flints again, then an immense mass of 
white chalk. Just think that these gigantic 
banks of chalk were all living, swarming crea- 
tures, that must have been deposited from 
water, and that you have them now in their 
petrified state ! The only thing that has puz- 
zled geologists are the layers of flint-stones. 
They cannot explain how it comes to pass, that 
in every chalk cliff we see successive parallel 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



55 



and horizontal lines of flint stones, three or 
four feet from one another. How these no- 
dules of flint came into that position, geolo- 
gists have been unable to determine, and no 
conclusion has been arrived at, to give satis- 
faction to those who are competent to investi- 
gate that question * 

Again, some of these formations, while in the 
fixed order of superposition I have mentioned, 
(as the gneiss lying above the granite, and the 
fossiliferous strata above it,) sometimes dip — 
that is to say, you find that the stratum does 
not lie always perfectly horizontal, but dips 
down, and sometimes you find an immense 
mass, by some great convulsion, thrown up as 
if it had shot up, and standing almost perpen- 
dicular. Xow when you find a large mass of 
granite thus driven up, and when you per- 
ceive afterwards that the next stratum, evi- 
dently, was gradually deposited by the water 
upon it, till it has become entirely covered, 
you infer it must have taken an immense cycle 
of years to deposit so much sand, dust, or 

* It has been conjectured lately, what perhaps we shall be 
able to prove, that these flints were originally sponges, and if 
so, it will strengthen the evidence we are collecting. 



56 



THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



mud around it, while the whole gradually so- 
lidifies, so as ultimately to cover this mass, 
and become solid rock. Suppose one of the 
pyramids of Egypt were in this situation, and 
the clouds were to shower down sand, you 
can conceive what a long time it would take 
till the whole pyramid was covered by it, and 
how much more to enable wet and heat to 
harden it. We find that very process to have 
taken place in cases of the under strata being 
driven upwards, and the upper strata lying 
horizontally deposited on them, thus indicat- 
ing the vast periods which must have elapsed 
till the latter strata were complete and hard. 
In other words, to close this part of my sub- 
ject by the interesting remarks of Professor 
Sedgwick, " Everything indicates a very long 
and a very slow progression, one creation 
flourishing and performing its part, and gra- 
dually dying off as it has so performed it, and 
another actual creation of new beings, not 
derived as progeny from the former, gradually 
taking its place — again this new creation suc- 
ceeded by a third ; nothing per sal turn ; all 
according to law ; all bearing the impress of 
mind, of a great dominant will, at the bidding 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



57 



of which all parts have their peculiar move- 
ment, their periods of revolution, their rise and 
fall." On many of these strata, I may observe, 
are found rounded fragments, rounded by cease- 
less attrition, and fragments invariably from 
the rock below. 

Having thus noticed these strata, from the 
granite up through the fossiliferous strata, to 
what is called the alluvium, I observe, that it is 
in this alluvium, or upper mud, that lies upon 
the surface of the earth, that we find the re- 
mains of man. But how interesting is this 
fact ! no remains of man, or the dynasty of man, 
or of the tools, the possessions, or the occupa- 
tions of man, are to be found in the strata to 
which I have turned your attention hitherto. 
They are confined wholly and entirely to the 
upper alluvial strata, only comparatively a very 
few feet in depth ; proving, in the most incon- 
testable manner, this one fact, as it is asserted in 
Genesis, that while whole races of living crea- 
tures existed and were extinguished prior to 
man, man is of recent origin, or just about six 
thousand years old — the very age assigned in 
Genesis, — Geology thus calling from its depths, 
ce O God, thy word is true ! " 



58 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

To touch more immediately upon the state- 
ment contained in the first chapter of Genesis, 
we read there these remarkable words : ".In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth." Now, in looking at this, just notice 
the fact, that all that this first verse does, is 
simply to reveal the fact that God created the 
heavens and the earth. It does not describe 
any antecedent dynasty, or any past or extin- 
guished race ; because the Bible was written 
not to teach geology, for we can discover its 
phenomena by science ; it was written to teach 
us all that relates to ourselves, all that is fitted 
to enlighten us in the way that leads to hap- 
piness and to heaven, leaving for us, and for 
after ages, to learn more than the greatest 
philosophers have been able to discover in the 
ages that are past. The first verse of Genesis, 
in other words, has no reference to the chro- 
nology of creation, but simply to the fact of 
creation. All that the first verse asserts is, that 
God made the heavens and the earth. It does 
not say, that he made it 6000 years ago, or 
10,000, or 20,000. It asserts the creatorship of 
God, and the creatureship of what we see, and 
nothing before. Then it proceeds to give the 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



59 



history that succeeds. The word which is 
translated u created, " is very remarkable ; it 
is the word bara. I know it is open to con- 
troversy and discussion, but you will find this 
to be almost invariably the case, that bara is 
employed where it is implied that God created 
something out of nothing, and that aasah, 
another Hebrew word, is employed when he 
uses the instrumentality of others in producing 
anything. Tor instance, "In the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth ; " that 
is Bereshith bara Elohi?n, &c. 

But in that passage, "God made Joseph 
father," &c, it is aasah, and in the passage, 
" God made Jordan a border, 5 ' it is aasah. The 
idea of constituted belongs to one verb, the idea 
of original creation is implied and involved in 
the other. And, very remarkably, both words 
are used in reference to man. It is said of him, 
God created (bara) man, and it is said also of 
him, God made (aasah) man. Why is this ? 
First, man was a new creation, and therefore 
bara is the proper word to describe him ; and 
whilst he was a new creation he was created out 
of the dust, and therefore aasah became also an 
appropriate word. 



60 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

But let us look at the passage itself, and it is, 
u In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth." I have said this is the fact of crea- 
tion, not the era or date of creation. In the 
beginning, means eternity, for in the first chapter 
of John it is said, " In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
Word was God," And it is said, " The earth 
was without form and void, and darkness was 
upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the waters." Now most 
Christians have taken the poet's commentary on 
that passage, instead of accepting it in its plain 
and unequivocal sense. They have supposed 
that the earth was one vast, surging, heaving 
chaos — that God first of all created a chaos, as 
the initial step, and then he made that chaos 
assume the beautiful shape of hill and dale, and 
river, and sea, and stream, that we now see upon 
it. But really this is not the meaning of the 
passage, for at the second verse you will find 
that the earth existed, that the sea existed, and 
that day and night existed. The language of it 
is, that " the earth was without form and void, 
» and darkness," that is, night, or the absence of 
light, " was upon the face of the deep, and the 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



61 



Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and lie 
said. Let there be light, and there was light. 
And he called the light day, and the darkness 
he called night." Xow how are day and night 
produced? Day is produced by one hemisphere 
being exposed to the sun, and night by the other 
half not being exposed to the sun ; and there- 
fore the earth must have been revolving on its 
axis at the very time that poets described it in a 
state of chaotic confusion. But you say, " The 
words are, £ the earth was without form and void.' 
Does not that prove that chaos is the proper 
name for it ?" I answer, No ; for the very same 
language is applied by Jeremiah in reference to 
circumstances which took place long after, where 
he says, " I beheld the earth, and lo, it was with- 
out form and void ; and the heavens, and they 
had no light. I beheld the mountains, that they 
trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I 
beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the 
birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and 
lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all 
the cities thereof were broken down at the pre- 
sence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger." 
Xow here the Hebrew words, Thohu and 
Vohu, translated by us, "without form and 



62 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

void/' are applied to a state superinduced by 
man ; and therefore you may translate this 
second verse thus, " And the earth was empti- 
ness and desolation." Then it is said, " The 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water ;" 
and that expression, " moved," indicates a pro- 
cess, and it is very significant. It is said else- 
where, that the Spirit descended upon Jesus like 
a dove. This text alludes to the third person 
in the adorable Trinity. The phrase is that 
which is predicated of a dove, and might be 
translated fairly, without deviating from the 
text, " And the Spirit kept. fluttering, after the 
manner of a dove, upon the face of the water." 
You have, then, in this passage, the earth re- 
volving upon its axis ; you have day and night 
existing in it ; and then you have the sentence 
enunciated by God, " Let there be light." Now 
mark the difference. When he created, it is 
said, Bara Eloltim ; but when it speaks of light 
introduced, it does not say, Bara, e( and he 
created a light;" but it says, Yehi Owr, " let 
light be seen." This is not the creation of light. 
I believe that light had existed thousands of 
years before ; but it is, " let the light, obscured 
by the vapours or evaporation of the moisture of 



GENESIS AXD GEOLOGY. 



63 



the earth, or from any other explicable and 
reasonable cause — let that light, obscured and 
hidden, now emerge and appear." But for 
poets to sing as if God had created light at this 
moment, is to stretch poetic imagination till it 
occupies the place of an interpreter of the 
word of God, and so ceases to be of use. 

Again, God said, " Let there be a firmament." 
You ask what that is. The word here employed 
simply means, let there be expansion ; let there 
be a space dividing the water of the clouds (for 
a cloud is simply water in the shape of steam) 
from the water in the ocean and the river, and 
thus the land would instantly come under drain- 
age, if you will allow the expression, and become 
fit for herb and flower and fruit, by the waters 
rushing from it, and forming the mighty ocean— 
" let it bring forth herb," that is, let it be fitted 
for it, "for man and for beast." Then it says, 
"God made two great lights." Now here the 
word used is not Owr, which I told you signifies 
light ; nor is bara used, which means create, but 
aasah, to constitute ; he constituted two great 
lights : the word is not light, the Hebrew word 
for which is Owr ; but maowroth is the Hebrew 
used for the sun and moon ; and literally trans- 



64 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

lated it is, " He constituted the sun and moon 
two torch-carriers, or light-bearers, to the earth 
and the human family." God no more made 
the sun and moon then, in the sense of creating 
them, than he created the rainbow when he ap- 
pointed it as the symbol and sign to Noah that 
another deluge should never occur. It seems to 
me plainly evident, that the record of Genesis, 
when read fairly, and not in the light of our pre- 
judices, — and, mind you, the essence of Popery 
is to read the Bible in the light of our opinions, 
instead of viewing our opinions in the light 
of the Bible, in its plain and obvious sense, — 
falls in perfectly with the assertions of geolo- 
gists, that the globe may be hundreds of thou- 
sands of years of age. All that is asserted, is 
God's primal creation and his subsequent ar- 
rangement of its surface, or his furnishing of 
the house for the habitation and comfort of man, 
leaving all that existed long prior to that to be 
discovered by the labours of science, his word 
only undertaking and professing to teach things 
that belong to our everlasting peace. 

But there is one subject which I confess is a 
difficult one, and it is the only difficult one. 
Some geologists, I know, may smile at my pro- 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



65 



posed solution, and some of my hearers may be 
dissatisfied^ but I cannot help it ; I only state 
my own belief, the result of my own reading. 
The difficulty is this : — Geology proves that death 
existed in our globe long prior to six thousand 
years ago. I say the evidence to my nrind^ from 
reading — from careful and dispassionate reading 
upon this very point — conveys an irresistible 
impression that death existed in our globe hun- 
dreds of thousands of years ago, very long be- 
fore the present surface, configuration, and ar- 
rangement of the earth on which we now live. 
Xow, the question is, how to reconcile this with 
what seems to be plainly asserted in the word 
of God, that death is the result of sin, that man 
sinned, and therefore death has passed upon all. 
I assert this, that, explain it as you like, no honest 
man, reading the New Testament, or the Old. 
Testament, can avoid concluding, that if there 
had been no sin, there never could have been 
any death. How then do we explain the fact 
that death did exist in the lower races prior to 
the creation of man ? For instance, in addition 
to millions of dead creatures, we find one of 
these Saurian monsters excavated from the 
depths of the earth with a smaller animal in its 

F 



66 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

jaws j having crushed it just as it had seized its 
prey. We find others, with the remains of 
smaller creatures in their stomachs, eaten, but 
not fully digested when death seized upon them. 
We find, too, remains of animals furnished with 
what are called carnivorous teeth. The ox's 
teeth are called graminivorous, because fitted for 
the mastication of grain or grass ; the teeth of 
lions, of cats, and of dogs, are called carni- 
vorous, because made to feed upon flesh, to tear 
and devour. Now we find, I say, in these an- 
cient remains, clear proofs of carnivorous races 
that lived upon flesh, and must have fed upon 
other animals. Anybody who will read care- 
fully what has been stated, and the facts that 
prove it, must come to the same conclusion. 
Several theories have been invented to explain 
this. A distinguished minister — distinguished 
for his piety as well as for his scientific attain- 
ments — has alleged that man was originally de- 
signed or made capable of dying, and meant to 
die, and would have died, but that his death 
would be contingent upon his eating or non- 
eating of the forbidden tree ; that is, so consti- 
tuted that he dies if he eats of that fruit, but if 
he had not eaten of it, though still mortal, the 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 67 

sentence would have been suspended, and he 
would not have died. Another theory is that 
of Jeremy Taylor — that man and all animate 
creatures were meant to die, whether man had 
sinned or not, and that in case of his never hav- 
ing fallen, death would have been a beautiful 
transference, like the twilight, or, as they call 
it in the north of Scotland, gloaming ; where 
the twilight of evening blends almost imper- 
ceptibly with the twilight of the next morn- 
ing — that man would have been gradually 
translated without the pang, the agony, and the 
shame of dying. But the third idea, which I 
really think is the right one, is that man was not 
meant constitutionally to die ; that wherever 
death is, there is the projected shadow of that 
great sin that crept into the world, and dragged 
down on us with it all our misery and all our 
woe. And I believe, at the same time, that the 
animals created after Adam, and constituting 
what geologists call our dynasty, were not ori- 
ginally designed to die, and that their carnivor- 
ous structure was an anticipatory arrangement, 
and that in every case sin and death are inse- 
parably connected. That the lower animals are 
involved in man's sin, is plain in many instances 
f 2 



68 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

of the Bible. At the flood, for instance, the 
animals were all punished and destroyed because 
man had sinned. We have repeated instances 
in the Bible, of the lower races suffering because 
of man's transgressions. I believe that is but 
the continuance of a law which began with 
man's fall, and that in consequence of man's fall 
it is literally true, as the apostle asserts, that 
the whole creation groans and travails, waiting 
to be delivered, and that a day of emancipation 
will come. I am one of those who believe that 
the brute creation are not in their normal state ; 
that the poor horse, over-worked in the omnibus, 
is not where he was meant to be ; that the poor 
bird, devoured by the hawk, is exposed to a con- 
tingency superinduced by sin. I believe, no 
less surely, that when the lord of creation fell, 
the whole of his dynasty fell with him ; and that 
when creation's lord shall receive the reins of 
creation again into his hands, his whole dynasty 
will be elevated and redeemed with him. 

Still we fall back upon the question, " How 
happens it that death was before man fell ? " My 
humble solution is this : First, Geology does not 
show death to have occurred prior to the crea- 
tion of man in the case of a single animal con- 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



69 



stituting the creation of the first six days of the 
week ; secondly, Geology does not adduce one 
instance of the remains of man amidst the fos- 
siliferous remains of previously existing races ; 
thirdly, the amount of its disclosure is this, then, 
that death takes place amongst the peculiar race 
of animals that existed prior to the creation of 
man. But as the Bible asserts that death is the 
result of sin, we are thrown back upon this ques- 
tion, " Is there any record of any sin having 
occurred prior to man's creation ? " We find 
God speaking to Adam of sin, as if Adam 
knew what sin was, and also of death, as if 
he had some idea of what death meant ; and 
we find that the great representative and agent 
of sin, called " that old serpent," Satan, walked 
the world, had access to its fairest spots, and 
tempted man ; and we read in the Epistle of 
Jude of " the angels who kept not their first 
estate :" now, I do not assert that the angels' sin 
was the cause of the death that existed prior to 
Adam's creation, but I do assert that we have 
the fact that sin occurred prior to man's creation ; 
and it does not seem unreasonable, or contrary 
to analogy, to say, that the disorganization of all 
animal being, prior to Adam's creation, may be 



70 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the rebound and the result of the sin of those 
angels who kept not their first estate, and re- 
belled against God, whose residence may have 
been this very earth, prior to its fitting up for 
the dynasty of man. 

I have thus, briefly, looked at that difficulty, 
the existence of death prior to the creation of 
man. I will now draw such instructions as it 
seems to me the investigations we have been 
pursuing fairly teach. 

First, then, it appears, that all the discov- 
eries of recent science, instead of contradicting 
the plain assertions of Scripture, either leave 
them untouched in their own inspired supre- 
macy, or cast an indirect, but illustrative, light 
upon them. Secondly, we have the most irre- 
sistible proof of what is called the non-eternity 
of the globe. You will recollect, that when one 
of the great Christian naturalists affirmed that 
there were all the traces of design in our globe, 
and therefore the proofs of a Creator, infidels 
replied, " It has ever been so." By this they 
asserted the eternity of the globe, and therefore 
got rid, by one extravagant assertion, of a clear 
and impressive evidence of a designing, wise, 
and glorious Being. But now Geology has po- 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



71 



sitively discovered whole races of animals were 
at once extinguished, and forthwith there started 
a new race, totally unconnected with the pre- 
vious ; then that new race was extinguished, and 
succeeded by another new race. In other words, 
we can just prove, as plainly as if we saw God 
making worlds, that God has interposed in the 
history of this globe some twenty times, and 
created at once, by a flat of omnipotent power, 
successive races of dynasties of living beings. 
We have, therefore, in that fact, irresistible proof 
that the globe is not eternal, but, on the contrary, 
the scene of successive creations, and that God 
has interposed again and again with acts of 
creative power. 

We receive from Geology the most powerful 
evidence of the existence of God. I have shown 
that there are proofs of creative power inter- 
posing and starting new races ; and such crea- 
tive acts are, of course, irresistible proofs of 
a Creator, who originated and produced them ; 
nothing, to my mind, is more absurd or extra- 
vagant than the notion of that man who has the 
moral hardihood of heart, and the obscuration 
of intellect and common sense, to stand up and 
assert the monstrous paradox, the unscientific 



72 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

dogma, that there is no God and Governor of 
heaven and earth. I was amazed the other day, 
when an individual wrote to me, to find the 
very first announcement of his letter to be, " I 
am an atheist." That was to me a perfect key 
to all the contents of the document. He not 
only said that he was an atheist, but he gave me 
the advantages of his reasons for being so. I 
read them, and I wrote back that I had gener- 
ally found Atheism to be a fog, that originates 
in the heart a conviction for the mind, deter- 
mining to get rid of the idea of God, because 
the deeds of the life are evil ; but I wrote that 
I could compliment my correspondent on the 
perfect absence of this, as, judging from his 
reasons, it was weakness of intellect on his part, 
and not badness of heart, that made him come 
to such conclusions. 

Another interesting lesson is taught us by 
Geology— that God has taken an interest in 
this globe, the most continuous, the most pa- 
rental. The infidel's objective query has often 
been, that as God has thousands of orbs of 
the richest splendour, of which he is the 
Author, and on the riches of which he sits 
enthroned, how can God give such attention to 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 73 

this minute speck, which he could expunge from 
the orbs of the universe, and which would be 
no more missed than would a grain of sand from 
the sea-shore, as to send the Son of God to die 
for it ■ This argument has been well answered 
by the late Dr. Chalmers and others. There are 
a hundred globes or orbs, and there is one truant 
orb ; God will leave the ninety-nine orbs that 
need no restoration, and will come on the wings 
of love to restore this prodigal orb ; just as the 
mother who has one child a prodigal, and seven 
at home, happy, good^ and obedient, when she 
hears the wind blow and the storms beat, will 
think far more, and far more deeply, of the pro- 
digal upon the open ocean, than of her seven at 
her fireside, under the shelter of her roof at 
home. And if there were no analogy at all. 
Geology proves in the history of the globe, that 
God has interposed in this globe so often in the 
sovereign exercise of creative acts ; and the Bible 
records that he has crowned his interposition 
with the most glorious of them all, redemption 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

The discoveries of Geology extinguish for 
ever the theory advocated in a well-known book, 
called the " Vestiges of Creation." It is most 



74 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

remarkable how trie writer of this book has been 
overwhelmed. The author of the " Vestiges of 
Creation" alleges that certain nebulae in the 
sky consist of a certain fire-mist, which has been 
gradually spinning itself into orbs, which gra- 
dually become bigger and bigger. Lord Rosse 
turned his telescope to these nebula, and found 
them to consist of clusters of orbs fully formed. 
Then again, the idea of the author of the " Ves- 
tiges " is, that man is the development of a 
monkey, that the monkey is the embryo man, so 
that if you keep a baboon long enough it will 
develope itself into a man. Hugh Miller states 
what geologists have discovered, that each suc- 
cessive dynasty (I use the technical geological 
phrase) was created at its maximum of perfec- 
tion, and that degradation, not elevation, has 
been the law of existence. We find no in- 
stances of transformation of races in Geology. 
How can you suppose, I ask, that an ourang- 
outang can ever develope itself into a man? 
The ankle of the ourang-outang, for instance, is 
rotatory ; man's ankle is a simple joint that 
moves forward and backward, and is meant for 
walking. Man's foot is a beautiful arch, and he 
is meant to support himself by it erect ; . but the 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



75 



ourang-outang has a prehensile foot, that is, 
long fingers meant for clasping boughs of trees, 
and leaping from branch to branch — the evi- 
dence of a brute, not the basis of the develop- 
ment of a man. But suppose that the ourang- 
outang's hairy hand were to develope itself into 
the beautiful hand of a lady, and its prehensile 
foot were ultimately to become the handsome 
arched foot, and its head to change into the fine 
countenance of man ; which part of the ourang- 
outang would develope itself into the grand 
imagination of Shakspeare, the great intellect of 
Sir Isaac Newton, the mighty genius of a Bacon? 
Where are the elements of such a development 
as this ? Echo must answer only, " Where ? " 
But Geology discovers no half monkey, half 
man, half one race, and half another, in any 
of the earth's archives, but distinctly defined 
and independent and distinct races. 

We have in the disclosures of Geology the 
most triumphant evidence of the possibility of 
a miracle. Hume, the celebrated atheistic 
philosopher, says that a miracle is impossible, 
and on this account, that we have no evidence 
of a miracle. Dr. Newman says, on the con- 
trary, that his church is so full of miracles that 



76 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

it is like an electric jar, charged, and only- 
needing to be exposed to the outward world to 
explode with all sorts of brilliant prodigies. We 
take the moderate course, and we say, miracles 
have been when there was a necessity for them ; 
and we say, the possibility of miracles is proved 
by the fact revealed on the stony page in the 
excavations of the globe, that God has stepped 
in again and again, and created races, and left 
evidences of that creation which are unmistake- 
able upon the surface and contents of the 
globe. 

In the next place, we have in Geology the 
refutation of the theory asserted by men in St. 
Peter's days, and asserted by men in our day, 
that " all things continue as they were since the 
beginning." They do not continue as they 
were ; they have changed ; God has changed 
them again and again, and they will be changed 
one day, when what now is shall undergo its 
last baptism, and the earth shall emerge all 
beautiful, and end, as it began, with paradise. 

And, in the next place, every discovery we 
have in Geology refutes the idea that life can in 
any shape, by any chemical combination of ma- 
terial elements, be originated. It shows that 



GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 



77 



life is the gift of God, and that nothing else but 
God's power begat it. 

I notice also, that all the discoveries of 
Geology show, amid traces of judgment, evi- 
dences of death, and intimations of sin — that 
every step in the formation of the globe has, 
more or less, been beneficent and benevolent to 
man. For instance, the coal that took thousands 
of years to form — the lime, which is composed 
of dead sea-shells and insects — the ores of iron 
— the gold and the silver thrown out in veins 
and interstices in the rocks — these are all found 
to be necessary to man. If you had no lime, you 
would have no flux for melting the metal ; if 
you had no coal, you could have no fire to melt 
the metal; and if you had no metal, you would 
not require lime and coal ; and yet all three are 
generally contiguous. 

Lastly, Geology tells us very plainly, that all 
the elements of that great catastrophe predicted 
by Peter in the 3rd chapter of his Second 
Epistle, are at this moment ready. It is well 
ascertained, that Fahrenheit's thermometer rises 
one degree every forty-five feet we penetrate 
into the earth, and that if you were to descend 
sixty miles, the heat at that depth would be 



78 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

so intense that it would melt the hardest flints 
and the most solid rock ; and that this globe is 
therefore a cooled crust, composed of the gra- 
nite and the fossiliferous stmta, and that un- 
derneath at the heart is one molten and surging 
sea of fire ; that the volcanoes are the safety- 
valves which prevent the earth's crust being 
riven into atoms, and all humanity perishing. 
A day will come when God will remove the 
restrictions, when the elements shall " melt with 
fervent heat." Oh ! may we, seeing all these 
things must be dissolved, be found in the happy 
company, and amid the blessed group, of them 
who, through Christ Jesus, are looking for a 
new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
righteousness* 

* In making these remarks I am greatly indebted to Hitch- 
cock's work on "Religion and Geology;" to Hugh Miller's 
able work, " Footprints of the Creator ; " to Dr. King's in- 
teresting " Manual ; " Dr. Anderson's " Courses of Creation ; " 
and to a valuable work on the " Earth's Antiquity," by the 
Rev. J. Gray, rector of Dibden. 



CHAPTER III. 



CREATION. 

" Iffy heart is awed within me, when I think 
Of the great miracle that still goes on 
In silence round me — the perpetual work 
Of thy creation finished, yet renewed 
For ever.*' 

M In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." — Gex. i. 1. 

The Bible begins its marvellous record with 
Genesis, or the account of the creation of all. 
and it closes it with Revelation^ or the re-ge- 
nesis, that is, the announcement of the regenera- 
tion of all things. It begins with God, and it 
ends with God. All came from him, and to 
him is given in the Bible the glory of all. 

The first verse of Genesis assumes the exist- 
ence of God. This is a fact which the sacred 
penmen rarely attempt to prove. They assume 
it as almost a self-evident truth; an original and 
inherent part of the furniture of the human 
mind — an intuition more than an inference. 
A voice ever rises from within, and mingles 
with ten thousand without, declaring there is a 



80 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

God. His existence and rule are assumed as 
the basis of all — the great secret and solution of 
all. Exclude Deity from the universe in our 
reasonings, and calculations, and thoughts, and 
hopes, and trusts, and fears, and joys, and nature 
falls back to chaos, the human heart into de- 
spair, and all things become confusion worse 
confounded. 

Nature reverberates in all her chambers, in 
her heights and depths, in all she was, in all she 
is, and still more from what she will be — God. 
We may rise from nature to the apprehension of 
nature's God ; but, however pleasing, this is 
only a discovery. The Bible tells us that God is, 
and this is a revelation. A discovery, we have 
seen, is something that man makes, and for which 
he is prone to take a tithe of glory and honour to 
himself, and which is therefore ever dangerous. 
But a revelation is something that God gives, in 
which man knows that he has no share, and from 
which he can extort no glory. Creation is full 
of Deity, and revelation resonant with his ac- 
cents. The natural philosopher rises from what 
he finds in creation, until he reaches the staple 
- fixed to the throne of God, from which the whole 
chain of being hangs. A Christian starts with 



CREATION. 



81 



God. who is announced to him in his Bible, and 
comes down to -see what creation is. from what 
he has found God to be. Hence, the mere na- 
tural philosopher argues what God is, from the 
jarring and broken state in which he finds crea- 
tion : but a Christian argues what creation is, 
was, and will be, from what he has first dis- 
covered God in his word to be. In this lies the 
superiority of the Christian's deductions, that he 
forms his conceptions of creation from a previous 
knowledge of God, and can explain it ail ; 
whereas the natural man forms his conceptions 
of God from a very much marred, a broken, and 
a disjointed world, and therefore often errs. 
Hence, the mere theist's apprehension of God is 
not a perfect one, because his evidence is not 
so : the Christian's idea of the world is the only 
true one, because his idea of God is an inspired 
one. 

What a blessed thought is this, if we could 
all at all times realize it, that we, and all about 
us, are the creatures of God ! When we have 
no sense of our adoption by grace, we may fall 
back upon the fact of our creation by power. 
If I cannot say, owing to the faltering of my 
faith, " Lord, I am thy adopted son/' I may 

G 



82 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

yet say, because it is impossible to avoid it, 66 O 
Lord, I am thy creature." There is a collect 
in the English Prayer Book, " O Lord, who 
hatest nothing that thou hast made." I think 
that is very beautiful : God hates nothing that 
he has made ; and whatever God hates is, come 
whence it may, an interpolation, an intrusion, 
which vitiates all it touches, and will be de- 
stroyed, but which he did not make. 

If God made us all, this brings before us- the 
dead level on which all humanity is laid. We 
all occupy one common level, as the workman- 
ship of one hand— the offspring of one Parent. 
Our birth and our decay, our origin and our 
end, our immortality and our tears, our sorrows 
and our joys, should all lead us to sympathize 
with each other, but never to hate and persecute 
each other. 

When we read the first chapter of Genesis, 
and think of the vastness of created things 
therein recorded, we may form, and God war- 
rants us to do so, not as a substitute for our 
creed, but as an illustration of it, some idea of 
the greatness of Him who made all. When God 
created the world is of very little consequence ; 
that he created the world is the precious and 



CREATION. 



83 



practical fact for us. When I think of the 
mountain ranges so vast in height, of primaeval 
forests so extensive, of the ocean lifting up its 
unsleeping eye ; of the sun and moon and stars 
ever looking down, and recollect that there are 
stars so distant, that, though light travels from 
the sun to the earth in four minutes, yet the 
light of these stars, travelling with almost in- 
conceivable rapidity, has not yet reached our 
orb ; when I think that stars the most distant 
are really centres of systems, and those systems 
each with its central sun only groups around 
another central sun, and that central sun with 
these groups, which are clusters of worlds, only 
a small group around a yet inner central sun ; 
and that all these, and more than these that the. 
telescope brings before us, are but a few of the 
out-posts of that starry host which keeps watch 
on the infinite plains, or ministers about God's 
throne perpetually ; in short, that all that the 
best telescope is able to bring within the horizon 
are but some of the scattered sentinels of those 
magnificent battalions that cover the fields of 
immensity ; — we may try to conceive, but ade- 
quately conceive we cannot, the magnificence 
and the greatness of Him who made all, and sits 
g 2 



84 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

enthroned upon the riches of all, from whom all 
came, and to whom all give glory and honour 
and praise. But I have spoken of catching a 
glimpse of what God is by* the great things that 
the telescope brings within the horizon from the 
stupendous heights of nature ; but I dare ven- 
ture to state, that we have even a grander idea 
of what God is by the little things that the mi- 
croscope brings within our view from the depths 
of the earth we live on. The more that one dis- 
covers of the universe about us, the more one is 
perplexed to determine whether God is seen to 
be most great in creating fixed stars, in control- 
ling high angels, or in forming those minute 
and microscopic organisms which the human eye 
cannot see, but every one of which millions 
upon millions, invisible and intangible by us, 
has a perfect organization of nerves and veins 
and arteries. Man's mind is overwhelmed by 
the magnificent things which the telescope 
brings down to him ; it is no less struck by the 
minute things which the microscope brings up 
to him ; one feels what difficulty there must be 
in being an atheist, what credulity there must 
be in that man who can muster moral depravity 
to expose his intellectual blindness, and to cry, 



CREATION. 



85 



f< There is no God." I think there is nothing 
so plain; so palpable, so unmistakeable on earth, 
apart from the Bible, as that there is a God. 

We have spoken of the outer creation as a 
mirror of Deity, but when we come to what is 
more familiar to us, ourselves, what evidence is 
there in all our structure of God ! We have 
heard that not a few physicians and .medical men 
are sceptically inclined. I wonder at it. Of 
course the human body cannot teach us that 
Christ died for sinners ; for this precious truth 
we must go to God's revealed word ; but the 
human body does teach every man that it is not 
an accidental thing struck off from some other, 
but an original creation of Deity, instinct with 
beautiful design, and eloquent with instructive 
lessons. So delicate is this body of ours, that one 
feels at times it is better not to know it too well, 
for the more we understand it, the more we shall 
wonder that it holds together for ten minutes ; 
and yet it is so powerful, that what it can endure, 
and what it will do, and what it will dare, defies 
almost the historian to record. Yet, noble as this 
body is, after all it is not the man ; it is but the 
moveable tent which he carries about with him. 
It is a combination of levers, and pulleys, and 



86 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

hooks, and pumps, and wheels, and windows, and 
speaking trumpets, and acoustic tubes, to enable 
the man within, who is its owner, to communi- 
cate with this outer world. But if this body be 
so exquisitely made, so wondrously arranged, it 
must be a very grand inhabitant for which such 
machinery, so complicated, so beautiful, so deli- 
cate, and yet so strong, has been prepared. If 
the body give traces and evidence of wisdom, 
design, omnipotence, how much more that soul 
which dwells in its innermost chambers, for 
which that body was made and consecrated of 
old ! How precious the jewel for which so ex- 
quisite a casket was got ready ! how great the 
inner king for whom so royal a palace was built ! 
and how truly do both show alike the wisdom 
and the power of Him who made them, and 
knit them inseparably together. I know no- 
thing greater than man's soul, but God ; and I 
know no creature in heaven, upon earth, that he 
would not degrade himself by giving religious 
worship to. He never appears more ennobled 
than when he bows the knee and gives undivided 
adoration to God. What man's soul has done 
is evidence of its greatness, but the fact that that 
soul, so great, could not reinstate itself in the 



CREATION, 



87 



relationship to God which it had lost, is evidence 
what a terrible chasm sin must have introduced 
into the world. 

We have thus glanced at these thoughts, fami- 
liar to most minds, as illustrative of the greatness 
of Him who made the heaven and the earth, and 
all things visible and invisible. Enough remains 
in all God's works to indicate benevolence, and 
to show that he is not only an almighty Creator, 
but a benevolent Creator. We know there are 
jarring elements thrust up at intervals that seem 
to prove the opposite, but they are to be ac- 
counted for by revelation light, and only in 
that light. But take the world as we find it, 
and we discover in the whole, notwithstanding 
the ravages of a new and hostile element, won- 
derful traces of benevolence. There is proof that 
no physiologist has discovered in the human 
body a single nerve that was designed to create 
pain ; he has not found a single vessel that was 
meant to vitiate the blood, or one gland originally 
meant to secrete poison ; the whole organization 
of man indicates original benevolence, in one 
word, that his benefit and happiness only was 
the primal end of the first creation of man. So, 
when we look on God's outer world, he might, 



88 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

for instance, have made one vast monotonous 
scene, perfectly sufficient to grow food and to 
furnish drink for man. But as we are refreshed 
by change, and cannot bear long-protracted 
monotony, God has introduced infinite variety. 
The same sight always seen, the same tone al- 
ways heard, however beautiful, become tiresome 
in the end. We are made for the enjoyment of 
variety. Well, God has condescended in crea- 
tion to minister to this. What splendid variety 
in the starry sky ! what rich glories in a land- 
scape ! what variegated colours in all things 
about, above, around, and beneath us ! and all 
not necessary to man, yet all emanating from 
infinite benevolence, and meant to be happiness 
to us. What is no less striking a proof of 
creative goodness and love, the best portions 
of God's created world no nobleman or prince 
can put into his title-deeds, or claim as his 
monopoly. For instance, when we go out into 
the country, we can say truly, these acres belong 
to that nobleman, those fields to that landlord ; 
but that which is the choicest of both, the 
beautiful landscape, belongs to all ; I can enjoy 
it just as much as the proprietor of it all ; and I 
can see from my humble door the splendour of 



CREATION. 



89 



a starry sky, and be refreshed by the scene as 
intensely as the greatest king or emperor in the 
whole earth. How interesting to us, that, while 
God has given to the rich man stones, earth, 
water, — the rough, hard, elementary materials, — 
he has reserved the cream of his creation, its love- 
liest, its most beautiful parts, the virgin blush of 
morn and the matron dignity of even, for the 
beggar by the way-side as much as for the peer, 
the prince, or the nobleman. We see in all this 
rich and deep traces and evidences of God's 
benevolence. 

We may fairly argue, after these reflections, 
that, if God made all, He governs all. If we 
suppose that God made all, as we are sure, we 
may very logically infer that God governs all. 
It is impossible to suppose that so complicated 
an economy as the material world, and the 
organized and living beings that are on it, 
would go on unless He who originally made 
them maintains them. We know that by a law, 
which every philosopher knows, impulses die, 
forces exhaust themselves. So in the absence 
of a governing hand and impulsive presence, it 
seems to me creation would stand still, fountains 
would cease to gush forth, rivers to flow, orbs 



90 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

would diverge from their relationship, and all 
creation would soon resolve itself into chaos 
again. * It is the fool looking at creation, who 
says, " No God." It is as great a fool, who 
looks at the carrying on of creation and sees no 
God. Creation's origin cries, " There is a God : " 
its continuance cries, " There is a God : " the 
Bible says, " for by him all things were made, 
and by him all things consist." 

Atheism is the most illogical and unnatural 
thing. It seems to me a vacuum, a freezing 
vacuum, in which no wing can soar, no human 
being can breathe ; where " all life dies, and 
death lives, and nature breeds perverse, all 
monstrous, all prodigious things." And surely, 
if it be an illogical creed, it is not a delightful 
one. To have no paternal heart to feel for this 
great family of ours, to have no open eye to 
pity us, no guiding hand to keep us ; to feel 
that, when we lie down on the last pillow, on 
which we must all lie down, and when the 
nearest and dearest must leave us, unable to 
accompany us any further, there is no one 
beyond to take us up, — it is intolerable, it is 
dreadful, it revolts the deepest instincts of the 
human heart, it contradicts the word of God. 



CREATION. 



91 



Having noticed these simple lessons, I venture 
again to allude to a science that has excited 
very great attention, of which I am not a pro- 
found student, but of the main details of which 
I know something ; I mean, what has been sup- 
posed to be the dissonance between geological 
science, and the Mosaic account in Genesis of 
the creation of the world. It has been alleged 
by some scientific men that there is a discord 
between what Moses writes, as he alleged, by 
the inspiration of God, in Genesis, and what 
they discover, as they truly assert, in the 
archives of the globe itself. 

I recur to this subject to notice, very briefly, 
that the Bible was not written to teach us 
science: this was not its object; and to try 
to construct a scientific system from the pages 
of the Bible, is to try to extort from it what 
it was never meant to supply. It was written 
in human speech, and in popular phraseology, 
to convey to our souls precious and saving 
truths. We ourselves know, that if we were 
to hear a thorough scientific scholar, being 
a minister of the gospel, preaching, never in 
popular phraseology, but in strictly scientific 
terms, we could not long listen to him ; be- 



92 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

cause much that he said would seem to us In- 
congruous, much would be unintelligible, and 
more would fail in conveying those precious 
truths that we come to church to hear. The 
Bible was not given us as a book out of which 
systems of science might be drawn. The 
chemist may inquire how such and such crys- 
tallization took place, the astronomer may inves- 
tigate how the sun and moon and earth are 
related, and the geologist may try to determine 
how old the earth is ; but the Bible returns to 
the chemist, the astronomer, and the geologist, 
the answer which its Author returned to one of 
old, who asked the too curious question, " Are 
there many that be saved?" "Strive to enter in 
at the strait gate." It tells them, these questions 
you may ask of creation, and try to extort an 
answer by your optic tube, or your crucible ; 
and by all means try to master and to acquire 
every information that creation can furnish ; 
but when you appeal to the Bible, you come, 
not as geologists, nor as astronomers, nor as 
chemists, but as sinners asking a question in- 
finitely more important, "Men and brethren, 
what must we do to be saved?" That is the 
question that the Bible answers in varied forms ; 



CREATION. 



93 



and anxiously putting the same question, still 
we must search it for a suitable answer. 

But, while this is perfectly true, there are in 
the Bible incidental allusions, occasional passing 
declarations, which fairly, and without forcing 
them, touch the domain of science. We admit, 
in stating Divine things, and in illustrating 
spiritual truths, there are figures drawn from the 
outer world, and incidental references to great 
physical, providential, or natural phenomena, 
scattered throughout the pages of the Bible. If 
one could discover that these incidental allusions, 
however incidental, not in main but subordinate 
things, do really contradict the positive and well- 
ascertained conclusions of science, — if one should 
find that a distinct statement in Genesis posi- 
tively contradicts a distinct discovery made by 
a patient inquisitor into the archives of nature, 
— then our course would be very plain. We 
know not that the mere scientific man would be 
able to take the same course. Mine would be 
this, — I have satisfied myself on independent 
evidence, most clear, and conclusive, to my 
mind irresistible, that this book is from God. 
Having done this, I lay aside this fact on a 
shelf by itself in my mind, there to remain 



94 THE CHURCH BEFOEE THE FLOOD. 

immoveable, not to be touched by any thing, be- 
cause, on evidence the most satisfactory, I have 
proved this Bible to be Divine. If you discover 
in your book — the book of the earth, or the 
book of the sky — any thing which contradicts it, 
I am quite sure that there must be some flaw in 
your calculation ; for my book has been proved 
by incontestable evidence to be Divine, and 
therefore you must be in error ; your conclu- 
sion cannot be just. Wait longer, and search 
deeper. Such would be my reply. It would 
not satisfy the mere scientific man ; although, I 
might add, I have some precedent for it : for 
you scientific men have come forward to prove 
that the Mosaic account was untrue, before now ; 
and only after you went back to your studies, 
and inquired a little more profoundly, did you 
admit you were wrong. Very well, if some of 
your former discoveries have by yourselves 
been admitted to have been wrong, some of your 
present alleged discoveries, which you marshal 
against revelation, may, on more mature investi- 
gation, be found to be wrong too ; and therefore I 
am not unwise in holding this Bible as Divine, and 
waiting patiently until you become a little riper 
in your studies ; and believing that then you w^ill 



CREATION. 



95 



certainly find that the Bible remains, with its 
credentials untouched, the inspiration and the re- 
velation of God. Nevertheless, while this satis- 
fies me, it will not altogether satisfy the scien- 
tific inquirer. He stumbles, hesitates ; hence 
the sceptic will seize the discoveries of science 
and fling them in the face of Christianity ; and 
they who are too willing to get something to say 
against the Bible, because it prophesies evil about 
them, — they who are too anxious to get their 
intellects to bear out what their passions need, 
in order to cover their indulgences, — will be 
very thankful to catch something to throw against 
the Bible ; and men of science, who are full of 
scientific investigation, and enamoured of scien- 
tific discovery, will hesitate before they accept 
a book which, they think, contradicts the plain- 
est and the most unequivocal disclosures which 
they have made in the bowels of the earth, or 
among the stars of the sky. To all these we 
answer, as we have already indicated, there is 
not the least dissonance between God's written 
book and the most mature discoveries of mo- 
dern geological science. One thing, however, 
there may be ; there may be a contradiction 
between the discoveries of geology and our pre- 



96 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

J 

conceived interpretations of the Bible. But 
this is not because the Bible is wrong, but be- 
cause our interpretation of it was wrong. 

" And the earth was without form, and void ; 
and darkness was upon the face of the deep." 
Now here is the past condition of the globe, 
prior to its present configuration, collocation, 
and arrangement. After this, the present con- 
figuration of the globe began, about six thousand 
years ago. " The Spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters. And God said, Let 
there be light." 

In order to demonstrate that this view is not a 
novel nor yet a peculiar one of my own, I will 
just give you one or two extracts from a very 
remarkable book, indicating great scientific re- 
quirements united to deep religious feeling. It 
is written by Dr. Hitchcock, President of Am- 
herst College, and Professor of Natural Theo- 
logy and Geology, and is called " The Peligion 
of Geology and its connected Sciences." He 
gives the opinions of a number of eminent men, 
who hold this view. " 6 The interval,' says 
Bishop Horsley, Q between the production of the 
matter of chaos and the formation of light, is 
undescribed and unknown.' ' By the phrase, 



CREATIOX. 



97 



c in the beginning,' ' says Doederlin, c the time is 
declared when something began to be. But 
when God produced this remarkable work, 
Moses does not precisely define. 5 6 We do not 
know/ says Sharon Turner, 6 and we have no 
means of knowing, at what point of the ever- 
flowing eternity, of that which is alone eternal, 
— the Divine subsistence, — the creation of our 
earth, or any part of the universe, began.' e All 
that we can learn explicitly from revelation is, 
that nearly six thousand years have passed since 
our first parents began to be.' e The detailed 
history of creation in the first chapter of Gene- 
sis,' says Dr. Chalmers, e begins at the middle 
of the second verse ; and what precedes might 
be understood as an introductory sentence, by 
which we are most appositely told, both that 
God created all things at the first, and that after- 
wards — by what interval of time it is not speci- 
fied — the earth lapsed into chaos, from the dark- 
ness and disorder of which the present system 
or economy of tilings was made to arise. Be- 
tween the initial act and the details of Genesis, 
the world, for aught we know, might have been 
the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of 
which geology may still investigate.' " Here is 

H 



98 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

a very decided testimony. Dr. Pye Smith, too, 
the recent president of Homerton College, says, 
" A philological survey of the initial sections of 
the Bible (Gen. i. 1 to ii. 3) brings out the re- 
sult: 1. That the first sentence is a simple, in- 
dependent, all-comprehending axiom, to this 
effect — that matter, elementary or combined, 
aggregated only or organized, and dependent, 
sentient, and intellectual beings, have not existed 
from eternity, either in self- continuity or suc- 
cession, but had a beginning ; that their begin- 
ning took place by the all-powerful will of one 
Being, the self-existent, independent, and infinite 
in all perfection ; and that the date of that be- 
ginning is not known. 2. That at a recent 
epoch our planet was brought into a state of 
disorganization, detritus, or ruin, (perhaps we 
have no perfectly appropriate term,) from a 
former condition. 8. That it pleased the al- 
mighty, wise, and benevolent Supreme, out of 
that state of ruin to adjust the surface of the 
earth to its now existing condition, the whole 
extending through the period of six natural 
days." Dr. Harris also says, " My firm per- 
suasion is, that the first verse of Genesis was 
designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the 



CREATION. 



99 



absolute organization of the material universe 
by the Almighty Creator ; and that it is so un- 
derstood in the other parts of holy writ ; that, 
passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse 
describes the state of our planet immediately 
prior to the Adamic creation, and that the third 
verse begins the account of the six days 5 work." 
Dr. King, of Glasgow, Dr. Schmucker, of the 
Lutheran Church, and Dr. Pond, of the Ame- 
rican Church, are also quoted in this very book, 
to show that this is not a singular opinion, but 
one held by the best divines, who have had the 
materials enabling them to come to a conclusion. 

The disclosures of geology justify the an- 
nouncement of revelation, that all material things 
had a beginning. Now, this is a very remark- 
able fact, that geology proves that the eternity of 
matter, which infidels try to establish, is a false- 
hood and a fable. In other words, when we 
argued w^ith the infidel, and said, There are in 
the earth, in the human body, in flowers, and 
trees, and all things, evidences of design, and 
that design benevolent design ; and therefore 
there must be a benevolent designer ; the reply 
of the sceptic invariably was, that this was 
always the case ; and unless you can show that 
h 2 



100 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

this long chain of designs had a beginning, you 
do not prove that there is a God who made the 
world ; because it has continued since we knew., 
and it must always continue, and we infer that 
it must always have been. Now, geology settles 
this ; it proves to demonstration that races have 
become extinct, and that new acts of creation 
have been interposed. I think it is one of the 
most striking and wonderful discoveries of this 
science, that the Creator has more than twice, 
thrice, four, or perhaps ten times y stepped in and 
created by distinct acts successive races or 
dynasties of animate things. In other words, 
geology proves how true is the announcement of 
Revelation, " In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth." Dr. Chalmers has 
wielded this argument with very great force in 
his Evidences of Natural Religion, which are 
well worth perusing. 

And this science proves, too, that God is dis- 
tinct from creation, and not what the Pantheists 
suppose him to be, part and parcel of creation. 

All science, therefore, as it becomes brighter, 
is casting fresh light upon the Scriptures, and 
proving, if the Christian needs any additional 
proof, that u holy men of old wrote as they were 



CREATION. 



101 



moved by the Holy Ghost." If we take the 
Koran of Mahomet, we shall read statements in 
it inconsistent with the simplest elements of 
science. If we open the Vedas of the East, we 
shall find that they contain the most absurd and 
irrational description of the physical world. 
But in the Bible there never yet has been 
found a single statement that contradicts the 
discoveries of science. On the contrary, science 
rather keeps advancing and coming up to the 
simple statements of the word of God. And in 
all this we have a proof, if the Christian needs 
it, that "holy men of old wrote as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." 

Now, this God who in the beginning made 
the heaven and the earth, is our Father. We 
learn this, not from the archives of the earth, in 
which the geologist traces his foot-prints, and 
fetches up the proofs- and monuments of his 
creative power, but in that precious book which 
tells us that in the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth. Whether, therefore, we 
see God's foot-prints in the depths where the 
geologist unfolds them, or trace God's presence 
in the heights where the astronomer soars, or 
whether He sweeps past, and we catch a glimpse 



102 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



of His glory as he passes by, in all heights — in 
all depths — everywhere, it is God ; but the 
Christian can add, It is our Father. No section 
of the earth discloses to the Christian a hostile 
being, but every part of it discovers to him his 
Father. And he can look at sun, and moon, 
and stars, and fruit, and flower, and tree, and 
say what none but a Christian can say, " My 
Father made them all." 

In the next place, seeing God in every crea- 
ture, and seeing that God governs every move- 
ment, the Christian must feel that nothing can 
scathe him unseen or unpermitted by God. 
What a precious thought is this — there are no 
such things in this world as accidents! We 
know well that if the pin were to fly out of the 
axle of a wheel, it might be the destruction of 
many persons ; and so if there were such a thing 
as an accident thrust into God's creation, it 
might be the disorganization of all. There are 
no such things as accidents, but all are per- 
mitted, or controlled, and directed by God. 
A Christian knows, when he looks abroad on 
creation, that nothing is hostile to him. That 
avalanche, that earthquake, that poison, cannot 
scathe me ; all are God's creatures, and they 



CREATION. 



103 



must work for good to me ; and if it is his will 
to make use of any one of them to remove me, 
it is only to liberate me from the house in which 
I have tabernacled, in order to introduce me to 
a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens. 

Another lesson we may learn from this. The 
fact that God made all should be to us an in- 
ducement to make a sanctified use of all. God 
says, when you sit down to eat the blessings he 
has provided, all that are on that table are my 
creatures ; I made all. That bread you eat, that 
water you drink, the wine you taste, are God's 
creatures ; they bear the superscription and the 
stamp of their Maker ; and they should be used 
therefore to God's glory. Henceforth, in the 
language of the sacred penman, " whether ye eat 
or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God." 

In the next place, may we not gather from 
creation a type of regeneration. Some Christians 
believe in instant conversions ; I doubt them. 
What is called an instant conversion is very 
often the result of innumerable previous thoughts^ 
influences, sympathies, all brought to converge 
into one focus ; and then that which is the 



104: THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

result of innumerable previous and long -acting 
elements is mistaken, and supposed by him who 
is its subject to be instantaneous. In creation, 
God took six days to arrange the present surface 
of this planet. He might have done it by his 
fiat, but he was pleased to create it by a process ; 
and I think this analogy would lead us to infer 
that he is pleased to regenerate by a process. 

If God made so beautiful a world out of a 
chaos, if the fairest flowers of the field all came 
originally out of the chaotic elements " without 
form and void," may we not infer at least the 
possibility of what Scripture declares to be a 
prophecy, the resurrection of the dead ; and 
that the least atom of our dust God's omni- 
science sees., and God's omnipotence will collect 
and reconstitute again in living and immortal 
bodies. 

But there is a lesson that this chapter does not 
teach — that we are not what God made us. That 
is plain enough. God once made us in his own 
image, and he pronounced us to be good : who 
does not feel, for our own hearts condemn us, 
that His image is defaced, and the glory is lost ; 
that we once were friends, but we are many of 
us foes ; once in communion with Him, now 



CREATION. 



105 



many of us strangers. All that is wrong in man, 
we are responsible for. The Bible never says 
that God made sin, and he is not responsible for 
it. Wherever it came from, I cannot tell, only 
God did not make it. But this we are sure of, 
everything that remains good in the universe has 
God for its Author ; while all that is wicked, 
or that is sinful, is from the creature, and from 
the creature alone. Yet, blessed be God! though 
we made ourselves evil, he has not left us to our 
own devices ; he has bowed the heavens, and 
come into our world, and died for us upon the 
cross, and made an atonement for our sins ; and 
through His precious blood we may be restored 
to our lost relationship, reinstated in a greater 
dignity, once more be the sons of God, and the 
world close with a grander Paradise and a 
nobler being to cultivate it, than that with 
which creation first began. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 

" Thou man thy image mad'st, in dignity, 
In knowledge, and in beauty like to Thee ; 
Placed in a heaven on earth ; without his toil, 
The ever-flourishing and fruitful soil 
Unpurchased food produced ; all creatures were 
His subjects, serving more for love than fear." 

" Who" (Adam) "is the figure of him that was to come."— Rom. v. 14. 

Creation bears still over all its aspects tlie 
evidences, not only of creative power, but of 
beneficence and goodness. God might have 
made the orb we inhabit a prison ; he might 
have furnished us with all that is essential to 
subsistence, and left us to grope our way upon 
its surface, and to endure life rather than to 
live, if such a life could be called living at all. 
But, instead of this, he has made it as beautiful 
as the hand of skill and as the heart of benefi- 
cence could devise. He has studded its cieling 
with stars, as with a thousand lamps ; he has 
beautified its floor with the variegated flowers 
of the field, and made creation a ministry of 
beauty, so rich, that the ceaseless action of six 



THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 107 

thousand years has not been able to destroy it, 
and the sin of succeeding generations has not 
utterly swept it away. 

But after God had made the earth, and formed 
all its living tenantry, it seems one was wanting 
to be the capital and the crown, the ruler and 
priest of all. The birds were in the air, those 
choristers of the earth, whose song is the anthem 
of the sky, the fishes in the streams, the cattle 
upon a thousand hills ; but all still waited for him 
who is pronounced by St. Paul to have been 
" the figure of him that was to come." With- 
out intelligence inhabiting the earth, without an 
eye to read it, or an ear to hear it, it would 
have been after all a very uninteresting orb, 
but when man was placed upon it in his meri- 
dian wisdom, strength, and health, then it was 
perfect ; it was pronounced by its Maker to be 
" very good." Man was the eye of creation to 
see the hand that governs it, the ear of creation 
to hear the bidding of Him who made it, the 
heart of creation to love God, the priest, in short, 
of creation to offer up its many-voiced psalm 
of praise, and to lift up its incense perpe- 
tually, and minister a holy Levite in creation, 
and before creation's God, giving unto him that 



108 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

made it all the glory, and the honour, and the 
praise. Man, therefore, was the last and the 
noblest of creation's birth-week; his appear- 
ance crowned it. His body was made of the 
dust, but it was the efflorescence of the dust ; 
just as the diamond is made of charcoal, but is 
yet the diamond. His soul was made in the 
likeness of Deity, immortal as God is, and holy 
as God is, and happy as God is. He had in 
that garden the tree of life to shade him, the 
music of a thousand streams to delight him, the 
very branches of the trees were harp-strings 
that hymned God's praise, and it required his 
voice only to mingle in the universal harmony 
to render homage to Him who governs all, and 
would preserve all. 

After man's creation, on which we need not 
dwell, we have a sentiment enunciated by Him 
who knew him, it was not good that man should 
be alone ; and therefore he made one to be a 
helpmate, that is, meet, or appropriate, for him. 
Does not this teach us that the social state is 
man's natural state ? that the monastic, the as- 
cetic, the insulated life is man's unnatural state ? 
This is evinced by fact. In solitude man de- 
generates ; in society, as part of a mighty whole, 



THE FIRST HAN, ADAM, A.XD THE LAST. 109 



he advances and developes his powers, his 
faculties, and his endowments, in the highest 
possible degree. In other words, man was not 
made to be a solitary, but a social being. The 
special evidence of this was God's institution 
of marriage ; it has its divine foundation and 
origin in Deity ; God himself was the first cele- 
brant of it, and it is the institution that still 
survives the fall. It was re-constituted or re- 
baptized by Christ when he quoted the very 
words of this chapter, indicating in the one 
voice the inspiration of Moses, and demon- 
strating in the other the propriety of that ordi- 
nance, the history and original of which is here 
recorded. We thus learn that marriage is not 
a mere civil contract. Of course it is a civil 
contract, so far as that the law of the land must 
be the basis of it for all legal purposes ; but it 
is really and truly more than this ; it is a Divine 
institution. It is legal marriage to be married 
at the registrar's office, but it is not Christian 
marriage. It does seem to me that it is not a 
mere civil union to be recognised by law, which 
of course it must be, but that it is as well a 
sacred, a spiritual, and a religious ordinance, 
never to be celebrated without religious rites, 



110 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

religious sanction, and under the influence of 
religious principles. Destroy Christianity, and 
how long do you think will marriage last ? Take 
away religion, and it become a mere joint-stock 
agreement, which may last for years, for months, 
or for weeks, according to the taste and the tem- 
perament of the parties. But admit the high 
and holy sanction of religion, and then it is not, 
what Romanism calls it, a sacrament ; but it is, 
as Protestants regard it, a solemn, a holy, and 
a lasting union, to be dissolved only by death, and 
the shadow and the type of a greater one, to 
which the apostle alludes in his Epistle to the 
Ephesians. 

We gather from this ordinance in con- 
nexion with man, that polygamy never was 
God's design, nor was it meant for man. It was 
not God's purpose ; for Adam was created, and 
Eve was brought to him, and it is said that a 
man shall " leave his father and his mother, 
and shall cleave unto his wife (not wives) ; 
and they shall be one flesh." And, as if nature 
itself would testify against the infraction of the 
Divine ordinance, wherever polygamy exists, 
as in Mahometan countries, there the human 
race rapidly degenerates; and only where the 



THE FIRST MAN. ADAM, AND THE LAST. Ill 



Christian sanctions, and scriptural law, and 
Divine principles are developed and carried in- 
to practice, it is seen that society readies to its 
culminating grandeur, and man, instead of re- 
trograding down to the brutes that perish, ap- 
proximates to God in moral, in intellectual, and 
even in physical state ; and humanity ceases to 
be a drove, and becomes a nation. I might 
give the very simple illustration of the truth, 
that polygamy is not designed, in the very 
simple fact that the sexes are very nearly equal 
in number. There is a slight preponderance of 
the female sex ; but the proportion of male to 
female is, what it has ever been, very nearly 
equal. 

It is the religious sanction that gives the wife 
her proper dignity, her true place and relation- 
ship. In some countries the vrife is regarded 
merely as an elegant and sensuous toy. In 
other nations she is made a domestic servant. 
In Hindoo states she is degraded to the low- 
est possible level to which so beautiful a frag- 
ment of humanity can be driven. Only in 
Christian, primarily in Protestant, countries — 
I say, primarily and chiefly in Protestant coun- 
tries, does she become the companion, the con- 



112 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

fidant, the friend, the equal of man. Beauti- 
fully, though rather quaintly, is it remarked by 
Henry, but not less truly, that she was not taken 
from man's head, to govern him, nor from man's 
foot, to be trampled on by him, but from man's 
side, to indicate companionship, co-equality, and 
mutual friendship. That she is of the same 
original rank and dignity as man, is plain from 
her very name. She was called Isha. The 
Hebrew for a man is Ish; for a woman it is 
Isha ; just as we say, 66 lion," " lioness." Here 
it is "man," and "manness," which words 
would be the literal translation of the Hebrew. 
Here it is shown that she has the same rank, and 
the same gifts, and the same powers in her own 
sphere that man has. Woman only loses power 
when she steps from the sphere that she adorns 
into one that she was not meant for ; just as man 
loses his finest tone and temperament when he 
degrades her from the position that she should 
occupy, and sinks her into one for which she 
was never meant. We shall find that it is by 
each keeping to his own place, that each will 
excel. There is a sphere where woman is sure 
to fail, and the reaction will be her own de- 
gradation ; and there is a sphere where man is 



THE FIRST MAX, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 118 

sure not to excel, and the result will be only 
his own ruin. It is by each holding his own 
place, invested with the original attributes, and 
fulfilling the duties that God has assigned, that 
each receives a true lustre, and both are felt 
useful one to the other. 

This union, which is here indicated, is to 
death. There is no law in the Scriptures indi- 
cating any sanction of separation, unless for the 
violation of the very essence of the holy com- 
pact. What God has joined let no man put 
asunder. And, except on the strength of this 
testimony, I cannot see any ground for the per- 
petuity of the marriage compact. 

The next remarkable fact in connexion with the 
history of man, is the institution of the Christian 
sabbath. I state these things as preparatory to a 
parallel which is based upon these facts. God, it 
is said, rested on the seventh day. This does not 
mean, of course, and few would suppose it, that 
God was weary and took rest. The simple mean- 
ing is,that God rested from creation-work on the 
sabbath day. This is plain from our Lord's own 
words, et My Father worketh hitherto, and I 
work," teaching that on the sabbath day God 
carries on his work of providence just as much 



114 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

as on the other days of the week. And there- 
fore all that is declared is, that he ceased from 
one kind of work. The new dynasty was intro- 
duced, and God therefore ceased from creation 
work. But providential work he still carries on. 
For instance, the sap rising from the roots of 
plants and trees to the, stem, the earth marching 
in its orbit, the sun and the moon and the stars 
pursuing their courses, go on by the immediate 
power of God put forth upon the seventh day, 
just as it is put forth on the rest of the days of 
the week. And therefore, we are now to under- 
stand by our resting on the sabbath, not simply 
the staying of the water-wheel, the hushing of 
the whistle of the railway engine, and the shut- 
ting up of the shop windows, and yet more of 
the same kind that is right and proper, but also 
that the day is to be spent in active labours, 
namely, in enlightening our minds, in minister- 
ing to each other's comfort, and to each other's 
spiritual, intellectual, and moral good, and in 
doing every thing within our reach to make 
society around us more holy and happy. The 
sabbath plainly is not a mere Jewish institution. 
The evidence lies in this, Adam was not a Jew, 
perhaps I might say he was not a Gentile ; he 



THE FIRST MAN a ADAM, AND THE LAST. 115 

was neither ; and the sabbath was instituted for 
the use of Adam as the father of the human 
race, not as the first link in the ancient J ewish 
or Levitical economy. Hence, the original insti- 
tution of the sabbath, is evidence that it is not a 
Jewish institution, merely for the Jews, and to 
pass away with their economy, but that it is for 
all mankind, and the right of all that will ; so 
that each man has just as great a right to have 
his sabbath as he has to keep his Bible. It is 
true toleration to prevent any body keeping the 
Bible from you, and it is true toleration to pre- 
vent any body keeping the sabbath from you. 
It is your right ; God has given it to you as his 
own precious gift ; use it, sanctify it, devote it 
to the holiest of purposes, and allow all men 
within your reach the enjoyment that you your- 
selves have. 

The sabbath thus instituted was a patriarchal 
observance before the giving of the law. The 
ceasing of the manna on the seventh day, which 
was also before the law, is evidence that the sab- 
bath was then observed. The fourth command- 
ment says, " Remember the sabbath day, to 
keep it holy," which shows that instead of its 
being the institution of it, it was only a refer- 



118 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

ence to its prior institution. It says, " Remem- 
ber the sabbath day/' a day that they knew, 
only to be recollected, not to be instituted in 
order to be observed. 

It is said, God blessed that day. He blessed 
it just in the same manner as our Saviour blessed 
the bread at the communion table. Just as he 
set apart that bread, instead of being a common 
meal, to be a sacramental thing ; so God set 
apart this day from being a day for common 
work, to be a day for sequestered purposes, and 
for holy work. 

If the sabbath were needful for man in Para- 
dise, how much more needful is it for man now ! 
If then he needed some day to remind him more 
vividly of what he owed to God, how much more 
do we need it now ! Let us, therefore, value the 
sabbath ; let us defend the sabbath from all ag- 
gression that would taint, pollute, or destroy it. 
When a nation loses its sabbaths, it loses the 
firmest pillars of its stability, its grandeur, and 
its power. The real secrets of a nation's strength 
are not what we hear, nor what we see : these 
are its religion, its sabbaths, its Bibles. These 
are like the piers sunk in the flood below the 
tide mark, invisible to us, but upon them rests 



THE FIRST MAX, ADAM, AXD THE LAST. 117 

the whole superstructure of social greatness and 
national strength. 

It has, however, been objected, that we had no 
right to change the sabbath from the seventh, 
on which day it was originally instituted, to the 
first. I answer, there are two parts in the sab- 
bath ; there is the ceremonial part, which is the 
day on which it is observed ; there is the moral 
part, which is the seventh portion of our time: 
it is not the seventh day, but it is the seventh 
portion of our time consecrated to sabbath work, 
and to sabbath objects. Now the ceremonial of 
the Jewish religion is altered, and the ceremonial 
of the Christian religion alters according to cir- 
cumstances, but the moral and spiritual remain. 
So the mere ceremonial of the sabbath varies 
with varying circumstances, but the moral re- 
mains. For instance, at the Antipodes it is now 
Saturday with them, whereas it is sabbath with 
us ; and if you go half way to the Antipodes, they 
have half of our sabbath and a portion of our 
Saturday. It follows, then, that the exact day 
cannot be observed over the whole earth, for it is 
sabbath with us and Saturday at the Antipodes ; 
and thus it varies over the whole surface of the 
globe. In this fact we have evidence that 



118 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the ceremonial is adapted to circumstances, but 
the moral or ever-recurring seventh day, consti- 
tuted and observed as the sabbath, is of absolute 
obligation. Besides, we read that the reason of 
the change was, that he who proclaimed himself 
Lord of the sabbath, — he, mind you, not who was 
called so, but who proclaimed himself Lord of 
the sabbath, — assigned the first day of the week 
to be the Christian sabbath. And every seventh 
day still recurring is now the sabbath, only it is 
the first, in order to remind us not only of crea- 
tion, but to lead us to anticipate the world that 
shall be restored to the righteousness and love 
of Christ Jesus. 

We have thus seen the leading incidents 
in another chapter of Genesis. It is now said 
that Adam, thus surrounded, thus invested, was 
a type, or a figure, for the word is the same, 
of him that was to come, that is, of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. And to show that this is not a 
solitary assertion, I refer to the First Epistle to 
the Corinthians, where Paul tells us also in the 
45th verse of the 15th chapter, " The first man, 
Adam, was made a living soul ; the last Adam 
was made a quickening spirit." Then, the 47th 
verse says, a The first man is of the earth, 



THE FIRST MAN j ADAM, AND THE LAST. 119 

earthy : the second man is the Lord from hea- 
ven." Throughout the Epistle to the Romans, 
he argues on the hypothesis that the first Adam 
was the type of the second. Let us see then if 
there is any parallelism, or if the first be illustra- 
tive of the second. 

The first Adam was formed of the dust of the 
earth, breathed into immediately by God, with- 
out a father and without a mother. In so far, he 
seems to have been typical of the second; for 
our Lord, as relates to his humanity, had no fa- 
ther ; as relates to his Deity, had no mother. 
And therefore, contrary to the sentiments of the 
Roman Church, we assert that Joseph was not 
the father of Jesus, and Mary was not the mother 
of God. 

In the next place, Adam was, when first 
created, a new manifestation of God. The rest 
of the animals that preceded the creation of 
Adam were created out of the dust, and had 
mere animal life, but no more. But Adam con- 
stituted a new manifestation ; he was a link be- 
tween matter as embodied in the animal creation, 
and spirit as existent in the angels that are 
around the throne. He combined in himself the 
ethereal and the material, and was so far a mani- 



120 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Testation of God. We are told that what was 
true in the type is more gloriously so in the 
Antitype : for Jesus, as we are told by the apos- 
tle, is " God manifest in the flesh/' is the perfect 
man, Looking to him, we can see the idea that 
was wrecked in Adam, restored in Christ, and 
acquainted with him you can catch a glimpse 
of the glory of God as he sweeps by ; thus 
we see in Jesus the model of the perfect man, 
the manifestation of the gracious God, and now 
the most glorious manifestation in the history of 
God's dealings with mankind. 

Again, Adam, as soon as he was made, was 
constituted the lord of creation ; he was the 
governor of all ; he gave names to all ; and 
these names were indicative of his lordship. 
Who can fail to see traces of that lordship still ? 
Even the powerful lion, unless very ravenous 
with hunger, will shrink back from man ; and 
it is said, that they who have the nerve and the 
physical firmness, when assailed by wild beasts, 
may by a fixed and piercing eye make them 
flinch back. The brute creation seems to catch 
in man's face a fugitive shadow of ancient do- 
minion, that makes them wince from his presence. 
That lordship may degenerate into tyranny, which 



THE FIRST MAX, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 121 

sin lias made it, but there is enough of it left to 
show that it was once, and there is enough of 
its perversion to show how sin has driven it out 
of course. But man's original position was to 
be lord of all creation, and if he had not let go 
his peace, when he let go his allegiance to 
God, it would be so still. Man rose in mutiny 
against God, and all nature instantly rose in 
mutiny against man. But as Adam was the lord 
of creation, and meant to be so, we read that our 
blessed Redeemer is Lord of creation by right, 
and shall be Lord of creation in fact. We read 
in the 8th Psalm, " Lord our Lord, how excel- 
lent is thy name in all the earth ! who hast set thy 
glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of 
babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength 
because of thine enemies, that thou Brightest 
still the enemy and the avenger. When I con- 
sider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 
moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; 
what is man that thou art mindful of him? and 
the son of man, that thou visitest him? For 
thou hast made him a little lower than the 
angels, and hast crowned him with glory and 
honour. Thou madest him to have dominion 
over the works of thy hands : thou hast put all 



122 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

things under his feet" — here was the first con- 
stitution : " all sheep and oxen, yea, and the 
beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the 
fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through 
the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how 
excellent is thy name in all the earth ! " Now 
we find the apostle Paul quoting this very Psalm 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and stating, (ii. 
6 — 9,) " But one in a certain place testified, 
saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of 
him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest him ? 
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; 
thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and 
didst set him over the works of thy hands : thou 
hast put all things in subjection under his feet. 
For in that he put all in subjection under him, he 
left nothing that is not put under him. But now 
we see not yet all things put under nim. But 
we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than 
the angels for the suffering of death, crowned 
with glory and honour ; that he by the grace of 
God should taste death for every man/ 5 In 
other words, the apostle indicates that Christ 
sits upon his throne, till all his enemies shall be 
made his footstool ; that he is by right and by 
original investiture Lord of all. The day comes 



THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 123 

when what is right shall be fact ; and he who 
has justly, and by title, the right of all, shall 
be in history throned Lord of all. 

We afterwards read, Adam felt it not good, 
as I have explained, to be alone, and God made 
" an help meet for him." How interesting is the 
fact, that Jesus, surrounded by cherubim and 
seraphim, in glory which we cannot conceive, 
and eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, 
needing nothing to add to his happiness, ca- 
pable of nothing that could detract from that 
happiness — how mysterious, how remarkable, 
yet, like Adam, if I might use an expression 
capable of misconstruction, felt alone, and 
selected a people out of every kindred and 
tongue to be his 66 bride " — " the Lamb's wife " 
— I use the language of Scripture, that he might 
present her to himself se a glorious church, with- 
out spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." But 
why did Christ thus interfere ? There is no an- 
swer except in his own love. Why pass by the 
angels that fell — the loftier nature — and lay hold 
of us ? I cannot answer. Why interpose to res- 
cue those who had ruined themselves ? I cannot 
reply, except in these words, " God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 



124 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." And when we think 
that that soul which is in each man's body had 
a beginning, but never can have an end, we 
can well see that if that grand interposition had 
not been, ours had been infinite sorrow, and 
endless suffering ; for through that interposition 
alone our lost inheritance is restored, our for- 
feited rights returned, and man made capable 
of the hopes of glory, and of honour, and of 
immortality. 

We read that Eve his wife was taken from 
Adam's side while he slept. Some of our mo- 
dern philosophers laugh at this. Very well ; 
give us a better history, give us what you can 
prove to be true, and we will accept it ; but we 
have heard of no account so simple and so sa- 
tisfactory as that which is contained in the book 
of Genesis. You may talk of it as a thing 
strange, but it may have had its spiritual signi- 
ficance as well as historic truth, and may contain 
more than we have yet learned. But, at all 
events, whatever is its significance, it is recorded 
as fact; and we are satisfied to keep the old 
facts in our creed, till they are dislodged by 
others that can be proved to be so, and some- 



THE FIRST MAN; ADAM, AND THE LAST. 125 

thing better. Eve was. then, taken from Adam's 
side . while Adam was thrown into a deep slumber ; 
so that during the operation he slept, and the 
chasm created in his side was more than com- 
pensated by an accession immediately after to 
the happiness and comfort and joy of his heart. 
T\ 'hen Jesus hung upon the cross, and his side 
was pierced, and he was laid in the sleep of death 
in that solitary tomb in the garden, his church 
started to her feet, having there her birth-place, 
entered on her majestic and glorious career, and 
will not cease until he presents her to himself, 
" a glorious churchy, without spot, or wrinkle, or 
blemish, or any such thing." The idea of the 
apostle is so perfectly beautiful, and so descrip- 
tive of the fact, that I again refer to it. f; Hus- 
bands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
the ehureln and gave himself for it ; that he 
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing 
of water by the word, that he might present it to 
himself a glorious church, not having spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be 
holy and without blemish. 75 Eph. v. 25—27. 

We learn from the Scriptures, that Adam 
was a federal and a representative person. In 
him all humanity was, with him to stand in 



126 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



its pristine allegiance, or with him to fall. 
Jesus also has been constituted our federal 
head. What Adam did, all humanity is guilty 
of. I do not stop to explain it, I merely 
quote what is the expression of Scripture — 
what Adam did, all humanity is guilty of ; what 
Jesus, the second Adam, did, all believers get 
the advantage of, just as if they had done it. 
Nature proves in all her economy that we fell 
in Adam. Revelation shows through all its 
pages, how we may be restored in Christ. 
Adam's sin has smitten those who have not per- 
sonally sinned after his transgression — innocent 
babes ; Christ's righteousness is imputed to those 
who have not done righteously, but are the 
chiefest of sinners, that believe in him. " He 
hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no 
sin; that we might be made the righteousness 
of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. All that we 
lost in Adam is more than restored in Christ, by 
what he has bequeathed to them that believe, to 
them that are his adopted and regenerated fa- 
mily — an inheritance which Adam never had — a 
glory to which Adam could have never risen — 
an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and 
that fadeth not away. The first Adam fell in 



THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 127 

the most favourable position ; the second Adam 
gloriously triumphed in the most hostile cir- 
cumstances. Our estate was lost in a garden, it 
was regained in a desert. The first Adam, with 
every thing in his favour, lost all ; the second 
Adam, with every thing against him, more than 
regained all. Paradise lost is the history of the 
one ; Paradise regained is the bright epitome 
of the other. 

Creation shall have a sabbath. The Jew- 
ish Eabbis all say, — whether they learned it 
from tradition, — or wherever they got it I know 
not, that the seven thousandth year of the 
world will be its great sabbath, or, as it is 
called in the Epistle to the Hebrews, iv. 9, the 
<Ta[3/3aTi(T,ub9 } the rest that "remaineth to the 
people of G^fl." We have reason to believe, 
then, that the earth is not finally cast off, that the 
devil will not have it as his possession. It 
is God's earth; it bears still the traces of his 
handiwork ; his foot-prints are over it ; and 
though the trail of the serpent has polluted its 
brightest flowers, and sin, like a fever in its 
heart, has wrecked and convulsed it from its 
centre to its circumference, yet it basks in the 
hopes of a glorious resurrection. Earth shall 



128 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

put off its long working-day clothes, which, it 
has worn for six days, or six thousand years, and 
put on its Easter robe, and be more beautiful 
than it was when it rose under the creative word 
of God. I believe that where sin hath abounded, 
grace hath much more abounded ; that there 
is nothing that we lost in Adam that shall not 
be more than restored in Christ. 

But, will there not be those who shall be sen- 
tenced to everlasting misery ? and that would 
not have been, you argue, if Adam had not 
fallen. But why are they sentenced to everlast- 
ing misery ? Adam did not sin against his will, 
and no man is cast out of heaven, or from the 
hopes of heaven, against his will. No man is 
lost in spite of himself. The devil worked in 
Adam to will and to do of his e^il pleasure ; 
and the Holy Spirit works in us to will and to 
do of his good pleasure. Adam was lost wil- 
fully, wickedly, criminally ; sinners now are lost 
exactly in the same way, because wilfully they 
reject the great remedy, the salvation provided 
in the gospel of Christ. Let us then knov/, that 
not one here will be in the realms of the lost in 
consequence of Adam's transgression. We are 
not denying the inheritance of it, nor are we 



THE FIRST MAN, ADAM^ AND THE LAST. 129 

denying the imputation of it ; yet we believe 
that not one of ns will be among the lost in con- 
sequence of what Adam did, but that the con- 
demning sin will be, " that light is come into 
the world, and men loved darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds were evil." This is 
the condemnation, that ye will not believe in the 
Son of God, whom he hath sent. Therefore, 
we expect that when earth shall be restored and 
replaced in its former orbit, and re-beautified 
with more than its pristine glory, Satan will 
not be able to count one wreck, or to lay his 
finger on one thing, animate or inanimate, and 
say, " This is suffering, because I succeeded." 
But every lost creature will have the corroding 
and the painful recollection, that it alone ruined 
itself, and passed into misery a suicide, and 
finds itself in hell because it would not open its 
eyes, and take the road to heaven. 

It has been supposed, we may notice, by many 
eminent thinkers, that the whole picture of Adara 
in Paradise is not an historical fact intended to 
illustrate a spiritual truth, but, on the contrary, 
that the spiritual truth pre-existed, and that Adam 
and Eve and Paradise are only the copies ; — in 
other words, that Christ and his church are the 

K 



130 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

originals, and that Adam and Eve are the mere 
copies, and that they were appointed as types 
and symbols of that which was to be. 

Now, let us consider this : — We are all the 
children of Adam. We need not waste time in 
confessing the justice or the injustice of the 
fact, that he sinned and that we suffer. Our 
personal sins aggravate that suffering, and our 
hearts condemn us, and God is greater than our 
hearts, and knoweth all things. We feel that 
we are born in an abnormal state of things. 
God never made the world as it is, and he 
never made man as he is. Something has hap- 
pened, some great catastrophe has smitten us, 
some dread eclipse has swept over us. We 
are not now as we originally were. The Bible 
explains the secret of it. It tells us that by 
one man's disobedience many were constituted 
sinners. (Rom. v. 19.) It tells us that in Adam 
all die. (1 Cor. xv. 22.) It tells us there is none 
righteous, no not one, (Rom. iii. 10.) 

And, in the second place, we learn that we 
cannot retrieve our ruin. That gap must be 
gigantic that the vast genius of man cannot span. 
Man can transmit his thoughts upon the light- 
ning's wings ; he can span firths of the sea ; he 



THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 131 

can cross broad and deep rivers ; he can raise 
monuments of his genius that shall sparkle in 
the first rays of the rising, and reflect the last 
beams of the setting, sun. But man cannot cross 
the distance that separates him from God. Here 
we are without strength ; here we are emphati- 
cally weak. And we need therefore to feel, not 
only that we are sinners, but that we have not 
in ourselves the force to alter our relation to 
God, and to reconstitute ourselves in that re- 
lationship which we have justly forfeited. 

It is then to man thus helpless that the good 
news came, (C In him we have redemption 
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." 
(Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14.) " As in Adam all die, 
even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 
Cor. xv. 22.) " As by one man's disobedience 
many were constituted sinners, so by- the 
obedience of one shall many " — the vast multi- 
tude — "be constituted righteous." (Rom. v. 19.) 
His righteousness is our title ; his blood is our 
atonement. And "to him that overcometh," 
he says, " will I give to eat of the tree of life, 
which is in the midst of the paradise of God." 
(Rev. ii. 7.) In other words, Christ is the way 
back to heaven, and by and through him we 
k 2 



132 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

have re-access to our lost inheritance, a new and 
lasting title to the true and irreversible rest that 
remaineth to the people of God. 

If, thus, we are all convinced that, whether 
we like it or not, we are involved in the first 
Adam's ruin, how blessed to all should the good 
tidings be that we are welcome, infinitely wel- 
come, to share in the second Adam's restoration ! 
The first we cannot help ; it has come upon 
us without our personal act and responsibility, 
if I may so speak : but the second we may re- 
ject or we may accept. We may say, " We 
will not have this man to rule over us or we 
may say, " Lord, to whom can we come but 
unto thee ? thou " — the second Adam — " hast 
the words of eternal life." 

May He move our hearts by his Spirit, to 
embrace his blessed gospel, and thus to save our 
souls, for Christ's sake. Amen. 



CHAPTEE V 



THE CURSE. 

" Her rash hand in evil hour 
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate ; 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat 
Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost." 

" And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done 
this, thou art cursed ahove all cattle, and ahove every beast of the field : 
upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy 
life : and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow 
and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children : and thy 
c.rsire ghaU be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto 
Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, 
and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt 
not eat of it ; cursed is the ground for thy sake : in sorrow shalt thou eat 
of it all the days of thy life : thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth 
to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy 
face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground : for out of it 
wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 
And Adam called his wife's name Eve ; because she was the mother of all 
living. Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats 
of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is 
become as one of us, to know good and evil : and now, lest he put forth 
his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever : 
therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to fill 
the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man : and 
he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming 
sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." — Gss. 
iii. 14—24. 

I have selected the sentence denounced on 
the human family,, and on all associated with 
Adam, as the subject of the present chapter. The 



134 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

curse itself that is here executed, was threatened 
iu Genesis ii. 16. " And the Lord God com- 
manded the man, saying, Of every tree of the 
garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt 
not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die," We have, in 
Genesis iii. 14—24, the execution of the pe- 
nalty that had been previously threatened, in all 
its length and breadth, upon man, and all con- 
nected with man. 

I stated in a previous chapter, that geologists 
have discovered the traces, the havoc, and all 
the evidences of death long prior to the fall of 
man. I do not think it is possible to resist the 
proofs, that men of mature, and patient, and 
Christian minds have adduced, to show that 
there was such havoc as they describe, it may 
be thousands, it may be tens of thousands, of 
years prior to the configuration of the globe in 
its present state, the creation of Adam, and the 
work recorded to have taken place during the 
six days of the first week. To explain this three 
theories are proposed. These are given by Dr. 
Hitchcock, the American clergyman to whom I 
have before referred. I quote the work, though 



THE CURSE. 



135 



here I am constrained to differ from him. We 
must; in reading a book, refuse what we cannot 
agree with, and accept what the author proves 
to be true. He gives three theories explanatory 
of the sad change which has been introduced, 
and he adopts the last himself. " The first 
theory/' he says, " proceeds on the supposition 
that death is a universal law of organic nature, 
from which man was exempted so long as he 
obeyed the law of God." Dr. Pye Smith, re- 
cently deceased, a very eminent scientific scholar 5 
as well as Christian man, belonging to the Inde- 
pendent body, held this theory ; and he thought 
that man was created mortal, and tending to 
die, but that if he had continued in his alle- 
giance to God, he would not have died. Death, 
he thought, was a universal law of organic na- 
ture ; that the tendency of man was to die, but 
that God would have repressed that tendency, 
so long as Adam retained his allegiance to him. 

The second theory which he quotes, is that 
espoused by the celebrated Jeremy or Bishop 
Taylor. " The second theory," says Dr. Hitch- 
cock, " which will reconcile science and revela- 
tion on the subject of death, is one long since 
illustrated by Jeremy Taylor. And since he 



136 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

could have had no reference to geology in pro- 
posing it, because geology did not exist in his 
day, we may be sure, either that he learnt it 
from the Bible, or that other branches of know- 
ledge teach the existence of death as a general 
law of nature, as well as geology. 

fe e That death, therefore,' says Taylor, 6 which 
God threatened to Adam, and which passed 
upon his posterity, is not the going out of this 
world, but the manner of going. If he had 
stayed in innocence, he should have gone pla- 
cidly and fairly, without vexations and afflictive 
circumstances ; he should not have died by sick- 
ness, defect, misfortune, or unwillingness. But 
when he fell, then he began to die ; the same 
day, (God said,) and that must needs be true } 
and, therefore, it must mean upon that very day 
he fell into an evil and dangerous condition, a 
state of change and affliction, then death began ; 
that is, man began to die by a natural diminu- 
tion, and aptness to disease and misery. Change 
or separation of soul and body is but accidental 
to death ; death may be with or without either ; 
but the formality, the curse, and the sting — that 
is, misery, sorrow, fear, diminution, defect, an- 
guish, dishonour, and whatsoever is miserable 



THE CURSE. 



137 



and afflictive in nature — that is death. Death 
is not an action, but a whole state and condition ; 
and this was first brought in upon us by the of- 
fence of one man. 5 " 

The third theory, and that adopted by Dr. 
Hitchcock, is, that death is the universal law. 
" The third theory respecting death," says he, 
(i takes a more comprehensive view of the sub- 
ject, and traces its origin to the Divine plan of 
the creation. 

" In creating this world, God did not act 
without a plan previously determined upon in 
all its details. Of course, man's character and 
condition formed prominent items in that plan." 
And then he goes on to show what he believes ; 
that man was meant originally to die ; that if he 
had continued in his innocence, he would have 
died ; that all the brute creation was also meant 
to die ; and that if Adam had stood in his alle- 
giance to God, Adam and Eve would have died, 
but, he says, softly and quietly, without vio- 
lence, and merely in a sort of transference, 
almost unconscious as an infant's sleep, till he 
should awake in a lovelier and a fairer world. 

I must say, that on weighing these theories, 
and giving them the most patient study that I 



138 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



can, I do not like any of the three. I like the 
old popular interpretation, which holds that 
Adam was not meant to die, and that the source 
of his death, and the death of that part of the 
animal creation created during the six days, was 
just Adam's sin. One fallacy that pervades 
these theories is, the assumption that the world 
was merely meant to be a temporary tent for 
man to dwell in, and that transference was his 
ultimate destiny. But we believe this world 
was meant for Adam's heaven and lasting home. 
God could not have been nearer to him, seeing 
that he walked in the cool of the evening in the 
garden, and conversed and held communion 
with him. And therefore the notion of trans- 
ference as Adam's end I cannot grant. And if 
man was meant to continue always in this 
world, if this world had remained unfallen, then 
there was no necessity for death, I do not 
therefore see that this theory satisfies the scrip- 
tural record, or gives a conclusion that one can 
settle down in, as warranted by, and in harmony 
with, all the passages of Scripture, to which 
we will briefly allude, and which seem to me to 
establish the common belief, that all nature fell 
the instant that Adam fell, and that Milton's 



THE CURSE. 



139 



Paradise Lost, whatever be its defects in other 
respects, gives a true statement of the Fall, and 
all its issues. 

First then, in speaking of the sentence of 
death inflicted upon man and upon the brute 
creation, God does not say in so many words 
that death was inflicted on the brute creation in 
consequence of Adam's sin ; but it is obvious 
that this conclusion may be gathered from allu- 
sions scattered throughout the book, in which 
there is implied a curse, and that curse unfolded 
by death lighting upon all the animal creation. 
At all events, the curse pronounced upon the 
serpent seems to involve a curse pronounced 
upon all the brute creation previous ; it is said, 
" Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above 
every beast of the field." Surely, if the serpent 
had an aggravated and added curse, it implies 
that the other animals were partakers of the or- 
dinary curse, and that therefore the whole ani- 
mal creation came under God's curse at this 
crisis ; what was the nature of it still remains 
for us to explain by subsequent passages. Find- 
ing the whole animal creation coming under the 
curse, and the serpent only under an aggra- 
vated form or degree of it, we try to ascertain 



140 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

whether this curse means death. I turn to some 
passages where it is stated that animals were de- 
stroyed on account of man's sin. At Genesis 
vi. 7 there is the following passage, " And the 
Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have cre- 
ated from the face of the earth ; both man, and 
beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of 
the air." The beasts, and the creeping things, 
and the fowls of the air had not corrupted their 
way during the antediluvian period ; but man 
having done so, we have here an evidence that 
the brute creation participated in the conse- 
quence of man's sin ; and that because the lord 
of creation sinned, all his subjects were involved 
in his ruin. So in Genesis vii. 23, "Every 
living substance was destroyed which was upon 
the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, 
and the creeping things, and the fowl of heaven ; 
and they were destroyed from the earth." And 
again in Genesis viii. 21, " And the Lord smelled 
a sweet savour ; and the Lord said in his heart, 
I will not again curse the ground any more for 
man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart 
is evil from his youth ; neither will I again 
smite any more everything living as I have 
done." Thus, we find in all these cases of 



THE CUIiSE. 



141 



judgment pronounced upon man, the brute cre- 
ation participating in it. And does not this 
seem to be the re-occurrence on a smaller scale 
of what had occurred on a larger scale ? Does 
it not seem like a repetition in special cases of 
what had occurred in the universal case ? And 
if animals, whenever man sinned, are always 
seen to be involved in the consequences of man's 
sin, we may see that what took place in these 
special cases under the providence, and wisdom, 
and benevolence of God, was only the unspent 
echo or unfaded image of what had taken place 
on a larger scale, when man sinned, and all the 
brute creation shared in his ruin. We see the 
extent of the curse, in its sweeping the ground 
of its richest beauty, depriving the air, as 
chemists have supposed, of some of its most 
vital and precious constituent elements, making 
the earth, which once burst into roses when Eve 
looked upon it, now bear only thistles, and brier?, 
and thorns. The very fact that the earth thus 
suffered under man's sin involves the suffering 
of the brutes which lived upon that earth, and 
were dependent upon it for their nutrition and 
their food. And when we turn to the eighth 
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we find 



142 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the apostle asserting substantially what I am now 
trying to prove. '* For the earnest expectation of 
the creature" (creation) " waiteth for the mani- 
festation of the sons of God. For creation was 
made subject to vanity, not willingly/' — that is, 
it was not of its own accord, it was not the wish 
or act of the dumb brute creation, — " but by rea- 
son of him who hath subjected the same in hope. 
Because creation itself also shall be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious 
liberty of the children of God." And then he 
says, " For we know that the whole creation," 
that includes the dumb brute creation, C( groan - 
eth and travaileth in pain together until now." 
So strongly and so universally has this been 
understood to relate to the dumb animals, that 
some persons believe that brutes will be raised 
at the last day. Of course, they only guess, 
they cannot gather this from any clear passage 
of the word of God. The apostle adds, " And 
not only they, but ourselves also, which have 
the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, 
to wit, the redemption of our body." 

Now, it does seem to me, that all these pas- 
sages prove that the brute creation became par- 



THE CURSE. 



143 



ticipants of deaths because of man's primal and 
mother sin. But here the objection comes be- 
fore us, how do you explain the fact which 
geologists assert, that death did exist prior to 
Adam ? The geologist will say, you assert that 
death is the consequence of sin ; but our dis- 
coveries in the subterranean caves of the earth 
show, written on records perfectly intelligible, 
that death and havoc existed in the animal 
creation long prior to the introduction of Adam's 
sin, the consequences and issues of Adam's fall. 

In the first place, I observe in reply to this, 
that geology does not show death to have 
occurred in a single instance amongst the 
animals created during the first six days of crea- 
tion as existent prior to Adam. All the animals 
that perished in those enormous masses seem to 
have belonged to a different climate, to a dif- 
ferent condition of the globe, and to have been 
all of a more ancient race than those created 
durinsf the six davs before the crowning act of 
man's creation. 

And in the next place, geology does not dis- 
cover in the fossiliferous strata, as they are term- 
ed, which extend six or eight miles downwards, 
a single remain of man ; it is in the highest allu- 



144 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

vium only that it can discover his bones : and 
thus, geology proves demonstrably that man must 
have been created last ; and the animals created 
during the six days found immediately below 
him, must hu r e been created just before him. 

What is the amount of the discoveries of ge- 
ology ? It is this, that death took place among 
animal races that existed long prior to the crea* 
tion of man. And among these races they dis- 
cover, what I think we cannot deny, that not 
only did animals die prior to the creation of man, 
but that they also devoured each other ; because 
fossil remains have been found with one animal 
enclosed in the body of another, or crushed in 
the teeth of another. Thus the destruction of 
many of the monsters that have been excavated 
from the depths of the earth, prove that death 
and ruin had raged together long prior to the 
present configuration of our globe, and there- 
fore long prior to the sentence pronounced upon 
Adam, " Thou shalt surely die." 

Notwithstanding all this, I stand by the pro- 
position in the word of God, that death is the 
consequence of sin. And to show how strongly 
this proposition is asserted, I turn to Romans v. 
12, where the apostle says, in language that can- 



THE CURSE. 



145 



not be mistaken, u By one man sin entered into 
the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed 
up-on all men, for that all have sinned." If we 
turn to 1 Corinthians xv. 22, we shall find 
these expressions : " As in Adam all die/' — that 
plainly is the death of the body, since he is 
speaking of its resurrection, — " even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive." In the 26th verse, 
u The last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
death," that is, the death of the body. Then 
the 54th verse, "When this corruptible shall 
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall 
have put on immortality, then shall be brought 
to pass the saying that is written," that is, at the 
last day, " Death" — he is speaking of the resur- 
rection of the body, and therefore he means 
physical death — " is swallowed up in victory." 
I appeal to every honest reader of the Bible, 
if his very first impression has not been that 
death is the wages of sin. 

Since we discover the great fact, that death is 
the effect of sin, and secondly, the other fact, that 
death existed before Adam's sin was committed, 
how do we reconcile the latter discovery with 
revelation ? I answer, we have evidence in the 
word of God, as well as in the world of God, 



146 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

that sin existed before Adam's sin. We read of 
angels that revolted against God, of "angels 
which kept not their first estate/' and are now 
plunged into everlasting darkness. We thus 
discover a great fact, that sin existed somewhere 
prior to the creation of man. Is it therefore 
improbable — I submit the thought for study — 
is it improbable that this earth was the habitation 
of angels in a long prior, and, it may be, still 
more glorious state? May it not be that the 
ruins and disorganization which geologists dis- 
cover as occurrences in distant ages, are the 
wrecks of an angel Paradise existing long prior 
to the garden of Eden and the creation of man. 
I do not say that it is so. I throw out the con- 
jecture for study. It is not written, it is merely 
guessed. Angels fell, and they committed sin, a 
greater sin than Adam and Eve. Who knows 
the height and depth and extent to which this sin 
of theirs may have gone ? Who knows what havoc 
it may have brought upon creation all around 
them, how high toward heaven it may have reach- 
ed, how deep toward earth's centre it may have 
shot ? Who knows but that those subterranean 
traces of ruin, of disorganization, and of death, 
may not be the issues of angels' sin long prior to 



THE CURSE. 



147 



Adam's creation, and that the wrecks and death 
that we see now are only the transference, not the 
first application, of a sentence, executed millions 
of years before, to a new dynasty introduced in 
new circumstances, and of which Adam was the 
federal head, who sinned and brought upon his 
race what angels brought upon theirs, — death, 
with all its misery, and all its woe. If this be 
the case, then the sentence of death pronounced 
upon Adam was not the creation of a new law, 
but the application of an old one ; it was not the 
occurrence of a first fact, but the repetition of a 
long prior existent fact. 

This, too, would explain how Adam and Eve 
should know what was meant by dying before 
they had sinned, and how they should know 
what evil was when they were only personally 
conscious of good. We may therefore conclude 
that the sentence, " In the day thou sinnest 
thou shalt die," was not the creation of a new 
penalty that never had been attached to sin 
before, but that it was only the declaration of an 
old one ; and that it was not the occurrence of 
a new fact that never had transpired in the 
history of the universe before, but the repetition 
of a fact that had previously occurred in the 
l 2 



148 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

case of angels. Jude speaks of " the angels which 
kept not their first estate/'— (jrjv eav7&v apxrjv,) 
66 their first state of dignity." "Where was their 
first state ? We are not told, but it seems pro- 
bable that it was on this globe in its first ex- 
istence ; and so it seems that what geologists 
have discovered as the traces of ancient ruin 
were introduced by the previous tenantry, and 
that we entered on a refurnished, not a new 
house. And thus this scripture is illustrated in 
the subterranean caves and sepulchral depths of 
the earth, as in every home and church-yard of 
our present economy — " The wages of sin is 
death," and therefore that death had not been, if 
sin had not been previously committed. So 
much then for the attempt to reconcile what 
seems at first sight irreconcilable. 

But there is another difficulty. Physiologists 
and anatomists say, Why then do we not find 
animals now as when they were first created? 
For instance, if we see a lion, we can at once 
perceive from his peculiar teeth, and visceral 
organization, that he is made to tear, to devour, 
and to live upon animal food. In the same way 
we infer, from the visceral organization of an ox, 
that he is meant to feed upon grass. And man 



THE CURSE. 



149 



is so constructed, that it is plain from a study of 
his visceral organization, that he is meant to live 
upon animal food, or vegetable food, or both to- 
gether. Then the question is asked, If death 
were introduced by sin, how does it happen that 
animals were constructed as we now find them ? 
If not originally so made, how do we explain 
the change ? Do you think the naturalist will 
believe that after man sinned carnivorous teeth 
came where graminivorous teeth were before, or 
that the whole visceral organization of the brute 
creation then radically altered ? He will not : 
the lion and tiger were created, just as we 
find them, as far as relates to their physical or- 
ganization ; but I believe that they were so made 
because of God's sure and certain anticipation of 
what would occur — the sin of man, the fall of 
the world, and the necessity of creatures being 
adapted to a world altered because a world 
fallen. He made them, in anticipation of that, 
just as we now find them. We cannct say how 
long Adam retained his innocence. We cannot 
say what opportunity was given for the exhibi- 
tion of these animals' propensities. But we 
know that a great deal of God's existing consti- 
tution of the world is anticipatory. The atone- 



150 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

merit, for instance, was a primal fact ; it was not 
an after-devised remedy for an untoward and 
unexpected disease, but it was set forth and ar- 
ranged and spoken from the depths of eternity. 
I cannot explain why sin was permitted, or 
why man should be responsible, the atonement, 
and necessarily the fall, were fixed ; nor can I 
explain many other things in God's creation. 
But I think it is in perfect harmony with many 
other analogies that God should have made car- 
nivorous animals by an anticipative fiat, where 
he foresaw there would inevitably be death and 
ruin. That all would have been peace if sin had 
not intruded, our Lord's miracles seem to me to 
prove. They show what creation was before man 
fell, and what it would have continued to be had 
he not fallen, by giving instalments of what it 
will be when the re -genesis comes, and all things 
are rectified and restored again. His miracles 
were not merely feats of power, but they were 
essentially redemptive. When he healed the 
sick, when he opened the eyes of the blind, and 
restored hearing to the deaf ; when he expelled 
the demons, when he raised the dead, when he 
restored broken relationships — in all these facts 
he not only evinced power, but he showed also 



THE CURSE. 



151 



that the hand of the great restorer was touching 
creation's jarring strings, bringing them back to 
their ancient and primeval harmony, thereby 
showing to man what nature once was, and what 
nature shall again be, when he shall come, as he 
promised, and restore all things. 

I gather from the word of God these indica- 
tions or proofs of what is here asserted. I see 
no reason arising from geological discoveries, for 
departing from the old conviction, so universally, 
and, I think, so justly cherished, that death is 
the fruit of sin, and that wherever death's foot- 
print is, there sin's stain has previously been. 

No one looking at man as he now is, would 
come to the conclusion that he was made just as 
we find him. We cannot believe that man was 
made originally to die ; there is nothing in the 
constitution of his body to indicate this as a 
primal law. On the contrary, medical men and 
physiologists have said, that if a stranger could 
come from another orb and examine the human 
body in full life, he would pronounce it a per- 
petual motion ; that its machinery must go on 
for ever. There is no ultimate physical reason in 
the world, why, when man comes to fifty or sixty 
years of age, the crows' feet, as they are called, 



152 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



should appear at each. eye, and whiteness glisten 
from his hair, and infirmity, weakness, feeble- 
ness, decay, seize every limb. Such a change 
is explicable on other grounds than physical or- 
ganization ; it is only explained by the judicial 
sentence, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." 

It is also worthy of remark, that facts lead to 
the presumption that after the Fall man did not 
die so soon as we do ; for we shall read that the 
patriarchs lived, some seven hundred, some nine 
hundred, and some even a thousand years. It 
is worthy of notice that the sentence of death 
took effect by degrees, and after the flood only 
do we find man's life shortened to a period 
approaching its present length. The last time 
that it was shortened by God, the duration of 
our pilgrimage was reduced to one hundred and 
twenty years. Such, I believe, is the natural 
period of human life. There is no fiat of 
God shortening human life since then; and 
there is no passage in the word of God that 
will warrant the conclusion that the limit of 
man's natural life should be seventy years only. 
I know that some persons will ask, Have you 
not read the 90th Psalm, (c The days of our 



THE CURSE. 



153 



years are threescore years and ten ; and if by 
reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet 
is their strength labour and sorrow ? " But 
recollect when that Psalm was written, and by 
whom. In the first place, it was written by a 
man who lived to a hundred and twenty, and 
therefore this could not describe himself. And 
in the next place it proves, not confutes, my 
position; for Moses says, " Instead of our years, 
in this wilderness condition, being what they 
hare been, they are reduced to threescore years 
and ten, and if we should stand the wear and tear 
of this condition and reach eighty, we find it la- 
bour and sorrow." This is a complaint that 
their years were so few, and that complaint em- 
bosoms the conclusion that properly and in 
better circumstances they were much longer. 
And as Moses, who wrote that Psalm, lived 
to a hundred and twenty years, I am still of 
opinion that if men were more temperate, and 
more attentive to sanitary laws, humanly speak- 
ing, a hundred and twenty would be their 
present age. If men were more sober-minded and 
attentive to their sanitary condition, if they 
would believe that their air is of more importance 
than their food, and that temperance and mo- 



154 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

deration are the obligations that Christianity 
prescribes and prudence and experience suggest, 
they would live to a greater age, in all proba- 
bility, than they do now. Much however of the 
shortness of life is still in consequence of the sin 
of man, and it is only the rebound of the ancient 
sentence, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." In proportion as Christianity 
attains its ascendency in the heart of man, and 
its influence over all his habits, and in propor- 
tion as the precepts of apostles are transferred 
to the practice of daily life, man in some degree 
overcomes the state into which the primal sin 
has plunged him, and approximates to that glo- 
rious and ultimate state in which, when Christ 
shall come and restore lost paradise to rejoicing 
earth, all things shall be. 

I cannot in this address enter upon the moral 
effects of man's sin. I will reserve that, with the 
great remedy, for my next. Let us learn, then, 
to look upon sin as essential evil ; let us explain 
the sad and sorrowful experience of man, not 
by blaming God, but by blaming ourselves. 
Whence sin came, why sin was permitted, I 
cannot explain. All I gather from the Bible is, 
that nowhere is it said that God made it. He 



THE CURSE. 



155 



made the sky, the sea, and he made the dry 
land ; he made the hills, and the great deeps ; 
he made the leviathan of Job, the crocodile of 
the Nile, the insect that flutters in the sun-beam, 
and the ephemeral that dies in a day ; but I do 
not find that he made sin. Hence whatever sin 
has done is not God's doing ; and wherever its 
responsibility lies, it rests not with him. O 
glorious grace, and O transcendent love! for 
when man had committed suicide, God, who 
had no hand in the suicide, has mercifully inter- 
posed himself, and in his love alone has provided, 
out of our death, life ; out of our ruin, restora- 
tion ; through the precious blood and the 
glorious sacrifice of Him who is the way, the 
truth, and, what poor Eve only was in type, the 
life, and the source of all living. 



CHAPTER VI. 



REDEMPTION. 

" Redemption ! 't was creation made sublime. 
Redemption ! 't was the labour of the skies : 
Far more than labour, it was death in heaven. 
A truth so strange, 't were bold to think it true, 
If not far bolder still to disbelieve." 

" And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, 
thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field ; upon 
thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life : 
and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy con- 
ception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ; and thy desire shall be 
to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, 
Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of 
the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it : 
cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the 
days of thy life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and 
thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : 
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his 
wife's name Eve ; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam 
also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed 
them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, 
to know good and evil : and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also 
of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever : therefore the Lord God sent 
him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he 
was taken. So he drove out the man ; and he placed at the east of the 
garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way f 
to keep the way of the tree of life." — Gen. iii. 14 — 24. 



In the former chapter I stated what we have 
here, the record of the curse pronounced in the 



REDEMPTION. 



157 



case of disobedience actually executed upon the 
offending and guilty pair. We endeavoured to 
show to what extent the sweep of that curse has 
ranged, and in what respects its operation is 
actual now among us. I stated my belief that 
death, whether in the material body of man, or 
in the animal creation, is the result of sin. We 
tried to meet the difficulty which geologists hare 
brought forward, that death has been discovered 
prior to the last configuration of this world, or 
the work of the six days, and the creation of 
man ; from which they argue, death cannot be 
the result of sin. We showed that, while it can- 
not be proved that death, as existent prior to 
the creation of man, was the result of his sin, 
we can show that sin existed long before the 
six days' work and the creation of man ; for 
Jude tells us, what other portions of Scripture 
confirm, that angels first introduced sin by 
breaking their allegiance to God. Thus the 
wreck and death traced by geology in the sub- 
terranean chambers of the earth, confessedly 
thousands of years older than the Mosaic re- 
cord, may be the fruits and the effects of that 
great first sin introduced by the fallen angels 
into the universe long before Adam and Eve 



158 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD, 

were created. But, whether this be true or 
not, the fact that animals now die, we showed, 
was in consequence of man's sin. We quoted 
instances where the sin of man is stated by the 
historical record to have been visited on the 
brute creation ; and likewise clear and unequi- 
vocal testimonies of Scripture, that man's death 
— the death of his body — is the result of man's 
sin. " As in Adam," says the apostle, " all 
die/' — he is speaking of the resurrection of the 
body, — " even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive ; " that is, all — good and bad — shall be 
raised at the last day. We have, therefore, 
clear proof, I think, that wherever death is, 
whether in the chambers that geology has ex- 
cavated, or on the platform of the world which 
we now see and live on, it is the fruit of sin. 
And, therefore, I do not believe that man or 
the brute creation was meant to die. It is very 
well to say, How could the world contain them ? 
it is easy to raise a thousand difficulties : it is 
still the plain fact, that clearly runs through the 
Scriptures, that death is the fruit of sin. Ac- 
cordingly, when God said, " In the day thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," it was not 
the creation of a new penalty, but the applica- 



REDEMPTION. 



159 



tion of a penalty that had been applied long, 
very long before. 

There are also other fruits of sin ; " I will 
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy concep- 
tion: in sorrow thou shall bring forth children." 
I need not comment upon these words. It has 
its echo in the experience of suffering woman- 
hood. Every mother is my witness. (( And thy 
desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule 
over thee." Just where Christianity is unknown, 
there the lordship of the husband hardens into 
tyranny ; and only in proportion as restorative 
religion, that is, Christianity, is felt, does the 
lordship of the husband soften into love. I do 
not think we can have a stronger proof of the 
fulfilment of this curse than in China, in Hin- 
dostan, in Turkey. We cannot have a clearer 
evidence that the curse has been so far averted 
or reversed than in Christian countries, where 
woman is raised to her proper platform, and 
made the companion, the friend, and the help 
meet for man, not his drudge, his servant, or his 
plaything. 

It is also added, that "the ground is cursed 
for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it 
all the davs of thy life ; thorns also and 



160 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou 
shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of 
thy face shalt thou eat bread." Who does not 
feel this ? This sorrow and sweat of face is not 
peculiar to the agricultural interest ; it is as 
distinctive of the commercial interest. If the 
farmer must water the earth with his tears, and 
fertilize its blasted soil with the sweat of his 
brow ; the merchantman, the tradesman, has to 
undergo the same fatigue, and to feel the same 
exhaustion, only in another sphere. And as to 
those who are called the unproductive portions 
of the human race, or those who are supposed 
not to be the working classes, that is, lawyers, 
physicians, and clergymen, and such like, I 
suspect they feel the curse as truly as others. I 
believe myself to be a working man, only I use 
the .brain instead of the hand ; and whether the 
one prepare sermons, or write books, or run up 
ledgers, there is the same attendant fatigue. 
This universal curse is felt from the queen 
upon the throne down to the meanest of her 
subjects ; for of all aching heads, that head often 
aches most that wears a crown. As Shakspeare 
says, 

" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 



REDEMPTION. 



161 



*' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, 
till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it 
wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto 
dust shalt thou return." 

Let us now briefly allude to the moral part 
of the curse, but especially and more fully to 
the grand remedy ; that which was preached to 
meet it. 

It is said, that when man fell their eyes were 
opened. Of course, morally and physically they 
saw before. Morally, they saw truth in all its 
beauty; physically, they beheld Paradise in 
all its glory. But the expression which is here 
used, " The eyes of them both were opened," 
evidently means that they saw what they never 
expected to see, and felt within them what 
they never dreamt of feeling. They saw a 
blot descend upon the earth, barrenness upon 
all the acres that were most productive ; cold 
and storm, disturbance, disorganization, where 
all was beauty, harmony, and peace before. And 
they felt, I have not the least doubt, within 
them a new and disturbing element, which they 
could not understand — that sensation which we 
know, and which we have all felt, called remorse, 
or the feeling that succeeds conscious sin, but 

■ M 



162 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



which was then for the first time tasted by 
Adam and Eve. Sin now shot like fire through 
every vein, and rushed, a corroding poison, 
through every artery, till their once bounding 
hearts were breaking, and their happy spirits, 
oppressed by a crushing and inexplicable sense 
of misery, yearned and groaned for a deliverer. 
Is not this repeated still ? While sin tempts 
the young man by its fascinations, his eyes 
are open to its beauty and its advantages, but 
closed to its issues. After he has been con- 
quered by the temptation, and has yielded to 
the sin, then the process is reversed ; his eyes 
are now shut to its charms, and open only to its 
poison and its hatefulness ; and what approached 
him in the most fascinating garb, is now seen by 
him to be the most revolting and repulsive ser- 
pent : his eyes are opened to see the dissolving 
charm that fascinated him for a day, merging in 
the avenging curse that lies upon him like an 
incubus, till it be forgiven by the blood of 
Christ. Here still is Satan's policy : when he 
tempts to sin, the eye that sees peril is blind- 
ed, and the eye only that sees beauty is open ; 
but when he has succeeded, then the eye that 
saw the beauty is closed, and the eye that sees 



REDEMPTION. 



183 



peril is opened : all was presumption, when only 
the beautiful and the advantageous were seen : 
all now is despair, when nothing but the deadly 
and the destructive are beheld. And strange it 
is, that though this experiment has been made 
upon the largest scale, yet each man has to 
learn it by paying the price of it in his own 
bitter experience. He too finds that his eyes 
have been shut to what they ought to have been 
open, and have been open to what they ought 
to have been shut ; and only by the painful 
reaction of a remorse that corrodes, or of a re- 
pentance that comes from the Saviour, does he 
learn that his eyes have been opened to see a 
good that has vanished from his grasp, and an 
evil that has taken possession of the govern- 
ment of his soul. 

It is likewise added, that " they knew that 
they were naked." They were so before ; they 
knew this before ; how was it that they saw 
it with so strange and startling a feeling now ? 
They needed once no raiment in Paradise, be- 
cause there were no chilling fogs, no cold, biting 
wintry nights ; and they required none so far 
as the decent and becoming were concerned, for 
there was no sin, and therefore no shame. How 



164 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

was it, then, that the instant the inner man had 
committed an offence against God, the outer man 
was discontented in the sight of God, in the 
sight of himself, and in the sight of one another ? 
I believe that the real explanation of it was this : 
— They felt that they had lost something, they 
knew not what ; and just as we see blundering 
physicians prescribing for the body when the 
mind is at fault, and is the originating cause of 
the mischief, so here poor Adam and Eve sup- 
posed that they had lost a raiment for the body, 
when they had lost and been denuded of the 
righteousness of the soul ; and they attempted to 
clothe the body as the first instinct of their na- 
ture, in the vain and foolish hope that by so 
doing they should clothe the soul, and reinstate 
it in its pristine relationship to God which it 
had lost for ever. 

They therefore took fig-tree leaves, " and 
made themselves aprons." The fig-tree is sup- 
posed by some to have been " the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil." Not that the 
fig tree could teach evil or good, since it w r as 
merely a sacramental sign, or symbol of God's 
authority, and of Adam's allegiance to the Sove- 
reign of the universe. It has, however, been 



REDEMPTION. 



165 



alleged by some that the fig-tree was " the tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil." This has 
been gathered from the fact that in the Scrip- 
tures, and in the proverbial expressions of na- 
tions^ some instances of which I have before 
alluded to, a bad sense is given to the fig-tree. 
However this may be, they clothed themselves 
with fig-tree leaves ; and they thought that while 
they concealed themselves one from the other, 
they therefore sufficiently concealed themselves 
from God, and satisfied the sense of loss they 
felt. Alas ! is not this the picture of all of us ? 
We fancy that when we conceal ourselves from 
ourselves, we have concealed ourselves from 
God. There is not a bush, nor a tree, nor a 
hole, nor a hill, nor a valley , into which man 
will not run to hide himself from God. And 
when at last he finds that the darkness hideth 
not from him, that the night becomes light to 
him, then he cries, not as the conclusion of his 
intellect, but as the aspiration of his heart, " No 
God ! " Adam, by clothing himself and flying 
from God, hoped to screen himself from God, or 
at least to clothe himself with that which would 
put him right in his relationship to God. Per- 
haps it was his attempt to justify himself, to 



166 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

make a righteousness of his own, to repair to 
himself all the damage he had done, and present 
himself to God again in clothing in which God 
would receive him. All this is enacted still, 
man will have recourse to a thousand expedients 
in order to get a right to heaven, if he can only 
avoid that divine and simple expedient, coming 
with nothing, but just naked as he is, to receive 
from Christ a righteousness to which he has no 
title, but wholly of grace, that God may have 
the glory, while we have all the benefit. 

When they were thus clothed, they heard the 
voice of God in the garden. Thus arrayed in 
apparel of their own selection, the best that they 
could find, and the best that they could think of, 
one would have thought they could have stayed 
to hear the voice of God in the garden. But, 
it is said, when they heard that voice, they fled, 
and they sought to hide themselves ; they were 
afraid. Why was this ? That voice came to 
them in music in their early and better days ; 
that foot-fall was the sweetest note in all the 
sounds and harmonies of Eden; that bright 
Light — that J esus manifest to them in some of 
those forms in which he was revealed before his 
incarnation — was to them the noblest image they 



REDEMPTION. 



167 



could look on; his dear words, the most de- 
lightful they could hear. How had this har- 
mony become discord ? How had this foot-fall 
become suggestive of approaching peril ? God 
was not changed ; his purposes had not been 
broken, his promises had not failed* It was not 
on Sinai and amid thunder that he spoke ; it 
was not in the blazing lightning or in the flash- 
ing fire that he came. Why then so appalled ? 
Why afraid ? Sin within makes cowards of us 
all ; and wherever there is a sense of guiltiness 
in man's heart, there springs up the wish, either 
that there were no God, or that by some resource 
of his own he might escape from the cognizance 
and inspection of God. 

The Lord did not allow Adam to escape from 
him, though Adam wished and tried to do so. 
We run from God, but he follows us ; his right 
hand sustains us, and rescues us often from our 
greatest enemy, that is, ourselves. . " Adam," 
God called out, " where art thou ? " What a 
startling question was that, " Where art thou"! 
How is the gold become dim ! how is the fine 
gold changed ! What a sad alteration ! what a 
terrible catastrophe! "Poor Adam, what have 
you made yourself? Where art thou? What 



168 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

hast thou done ? 55 In reply Adam repeats the 
paltry and equivocal excuse, only in other 
words, which he had used before; and finally 
his day in Eden was closed, after he had heard 
in mercy the gospel, and he is driven out of 
Paradise. But why driven out of it ? Because 
he had lost his only title to it, and the only fit- 
ness that could qualify him for its enjoyment. 
Perfect righteousness was his title to Paradise ; 
this title he had lost. Fitness of character was 
Adam's qualification for Paradise ; that fitness 
of character fled as soon as sin cast its shadow 
into his heart. In judgment, as in mercy, he 
was driven out of Paradise. The air of Eden 
he could breathe no more ; he was now a patient 
fit for an hospital, where he could be cured, not 
for Eden, where the healthy, the holy, and the 
happy only were. He was a sinner, adapted to 
a state where sin had done its work ; not a saint, 
whose joy would grow by continuing in the im- 
mediate presence of God. "The lust of the 
flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of 
life," had now entered the sanctuary of his heart. 
Ail was wrong within ; he was only fit, therefore, 
for a world that was all wrong without. And 
so he left Paradise, looking behind upon the 



REDEMPTION. 



169 



glory he had forfeited, and looking forward 
upon the barren earth which he was now 
doomed to till in the sweat of his brow. What 
a change must he have felt ! Clouds, where all 
was sunshine — a vitiated air, where all erst was 
balm — thistles breaking forth in every acre, 
where he had only to look before, and responsive 
to his look the very earth burst into roses, and 
everything rejoiced ; and instead of the groups 
of animals that used to cluster around him, and 
own him as their lord, he now went out into a 
menagerie of wild beasts, which rose against 
man with one consent, because man had risen 
against God. All was materially changed with- 
out, because all was morally changed within. 

We have in this history the most rational 
account of the introduction of sin into our 
world. We have, in the next place, the most ra- 
tional record of the consequences that followed 
from that sin. Shame painted itself upon the 
cheek, where sin had raised its throne within 
the heart : they were ashamed to approach God. 
Fear instantly took possession of the heart, where 
transgression had previously erected its throne. 
From being a free-man, because the son of God, 
Adam felt himself now the bond-slave of Satan, 



170 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

— a law in his members warring against the law 
of his spirit, and bringing him captive to sin and 
death. In one word, he became dead morally, 
dead spiritually. Mortality seized upon every 
fibre of his frame, and from that moment his life, 
protracted as it was for many hundred years, 
was a ceaseless descent from perfect health to 
the closing stroke of death, when to the dust he 
returned, out of which he was originally taken. 

But we read in the next place, that God did 
not leave man to the effects of his transgression ; 
for he said to the serpent, " I will put enmity 
between thee and the woman, and between thy 
seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and 
thou shalt bruise his heel." Although Christ 
should bruise Satan's head, his heel should be 
bruised by the serpent's stratagems and wiles. 
So far he proclaimed the subtlety of the serpent ; 
and, while he pronounced punishment upon the 
serpent as a reptile, he still more proclaimed 
punishment to Satan, who made use of the dumb 
animal in order to execute so great and grievous, 
and too successful, an assault upon mankind. 

W e cannot read the New Testament without 
tracing allusions to the serpent. " That ser- 
pent," " The dragon," " The serpent/' " The 



REDEMPTION. 



171 



old serpent." (Kev. xii. 9.) And the apostle 
Paul speaks of the serpent beguiling them, 
evidently alluding to Satan as the tempter of 
m ankind. 

The woman's seed here spoken of, is, no doubt, 
the Saviour ; and the prediction is, that from 
the very race that had become the subjects of 
Satan's victory should proceed One who should 
bruise Satan's head, reverse the havoc of the 
fall, restore all things, and replace man in his 
forfeited relationship to God. We have in these 
words the first evangelical sermon that was ever 
preached. We have here the glorious gospel 
sounding amid the wrecks of Paradise ; a bright 
rainbow arching the earth, and indicating a 
pathway back to God ; a voice sounding from 
between the cherubim, and speaking of a Lamb 
slain from the foundation of the world, who 
should destroy the works of the devil, bruise 
Satan under his feet, and proclaim to the whole 
universe mercy and truth that have met together, 
and righteousness and peace that have kissed 
each other, over his sacrifice, and in the forgive- 
ness of them that have sinned against God. 

The very first effect, then, of the proclamation 
of the gospel to Adam, was his own restoration, 



172 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE ELOOD. 

He laid aside the fig-tree leaves that he had se- 
lected himself^ and he was clothed in an entirely- 
different apparel. It is said, God clothed him 
with the skins of animals. The instant that he 
heard the gospel we find him laying aside the 
clothing of his own selection, and thenceforth 
being clothed with the skins of animals. Now 
no animals had probably died, on account of 
the shortness of the time that had elapsed since 
the fall ; animals were not then slain for food ; 
and the presumption therefore is, that these 
animals were slain for sacrifices ; and espe- 
cially does this become probable, when we find 
that the first sacrifice that Abel made was a 
slain lamb, which offering God accepted, whilst 
he did not accept the bouquet of flowers which 
Cain laid on his altar. The presumption is, 
therefore, that these animals were slain for 
sacrifices. In their blood Adam saw the type 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world, and in their skins substituted for his 
own preferred fig-tree leaves, he saw the type 
of that righteousness which was substituted for 
his own righteousness, and in which he could 
be arrayed as in raiment white and clean, which 
is the righteousness of saints. In the blood of 



REDEMPTION. 



173 



the slain animals he saw the foreshadow of 
Christ's sacrifice by which God forgave his sins ; 
in their skins, wherewith he was clothed, he 
saw Christ's righteousness imputed to him, in 
which alone he was justified. In Christ's work 
there are two distinct aspects. By what he suf- 
fered in his death, our sins are blotted out ; by 
what he did in his obedience to the law, we are 
justified. By Christ's blood-shedding we escape 
the penal sentence of eternal death ; but it is by 
Christ's obedience that we merit the reward 
that we have justly forfeited. Thus, Christ's 
passive sacrifice, by which we are forgiven, and 
Christ's active obedience, or the righteousness 
by which we are justified, were vividly pro- 
claimed to Adam amid the wreck and clouds and 
chaos that he had brought upon himself, and 
there and then he was taught to lift up his heart, 
and, instead of despairing, hope for that repara- 
tion which we know will be accomplished in the 
fulness cf the times. 

The only thing that has perplexed some in 
regarding this passage as the proclamation of the 
gospel, is the fact that it was addressed to the 
serpent, and not to Adam and Eve. Very 
naturally it has been asked, Why did God pro- 



174 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

claim this glorious promise to the vile serpent, 
and not directly to Adam and Eye? Perhaps 
it may have been especially to abase and hum- 
ble the guilty pair, by showing them that that 
God whom they had offended, was separated 
from them by their sins. But it is plain that, 
although he told the serpent this promise, he 
gave it for Adam and Eve, as well as to Adam 
and Eve. They heard the promise, and rejoiced 
in the gospel it unbosomed, whilst they were 
humbled by the truly humbling fact, that God 
did not speak to them directly until they had 
accepted the truth, been reinstated in their lost 
relationship, and, from being strangers, had 
been made again the friends and the followers 
of the Lamb. Or God may have addressed these 
words to the serpent first, in order to evolve his 
own glory. In other words, God would fore- 
show that this great interrupter of a happy world 
must be destroyed, before he would proclaim this 
glad news which would bring joy to the hearts 
of the guilty. It may have been meant to indi- 
cate the subjugation of the evil, that subjugation 
evincing the power of Him who should accom- 
plish it ; or that his glory must be compatible 
with the promise of a Saviour, and with the 



REDEMPTION. 



1T5 



mercy and forgiveness which it embosomed for 
Adam and Eve, and for all that should believe in 
the name of Jesus. In other wordsj it may have 
been designed to prove that the Father was not 
to overshadow the Judge ; that mercy must not 
be the grave of justice ; that sin could only be 
forgiven in a mode that should vindicate the 
ways of God to man. and prove that he was just, 
and holy, and true, while he justified and freely 
forgave the guilty that believed in Jesus, 

Thus we have the gospel preached in Paradise, 
and justification by faith alone — its distinctive 
and peculiar dogma — proclaimed some six thou- 
sand years ago. Adam and Eve were Protest- 
ants. The first sermon that they heard was 
emphatically a Protestant one. " Christ and 
him crucified " was the text ; cc Christ and him 
crucified " was the sermon : and these two trans- 
gressors were the first congregation that listened 
to it. and the first true church that loved and 
lived it. God told them, " I am the way. the 
truth, and the life." Adam and Eve heard sub- 
stantially these words. " I have made him to be 
sin for you, who knew no sin : that you, who 
have committed this great primal sin, might be 
made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor, 



176 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

v. 21.) Or rather, if it were Jesus who preached 
the sermon, as we believe it was, then be sub- 
stantially said to them, " Come unto me, Adam 
and Eve, weary and heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest. My awful agony to be endured 
shall prevent yours. My incarnation shall re- 
store the earth to a better Paradise. My tears 
shall christen, my blood shall re-consecrate it ; 
my pierced hands shall lift you to a height of 
glory, higher far than that from which you fell ; 
and your last estate shall be better, more glo- 
rious, and more triumphant by redeeming grace, 
than the first was by creative power." 

Thus the great way of perfect acceptance 
through the blood of Jesus is as old as the 
Fall, was preached, as with a trumpet voice, in 
Paradise, was not there a doctrine of reserve, 
as some have wished it to be, but the promin- 
ent proclamation — the Alpha and the Omega 
— the very pith and substance of the first pro- 
mise that was uttered. There was indicated 
in this very promise that the restoration was to 
be effected by sufferings then yet to be endured ; 
for it is said that, while Satan's head was to be 
bruised, the Saviour's heel was to be hurt in 
doing so. And what is this but the early epitome 



REDEMPTION. 



ITT 



of the statement, " It became him, for whom are 
all things, and by whom are all things, in bring- 
ing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain 
of their salvation perfect through siifferings ? 55 
(Hebrews ii. 10.) In other words, it is the in- 
dication, that through death Jesus should de- 
stroy him who had the power of death ; and 
therefore, that the sufferings of Christ were not 
the patient endurance of the martyr attesting 
the sincerity of his convictions, but the ex- 
piatory agonies of the Victim making atone- 
ment for all the sins of all that believe. Eefuse 
to believe that the sufferings of Jesus were ex- 
piatory, and you exhaust Christianity of its life- 
blood ; you deny us that which is the basis of 
our brightest, our dearest, our eternal hopes ; 
you make Christianity the revelation only of 
a more perfect standard, and to man, there- 
fore, the vehicle of only a more thorough and 
hopeless despair'. What man needs in his ruin 
is 9 not the knowledge of what he should be. 
for that he knows too well, but the process by 
which he may be restored to what he should be. 
TThen we go into an hospital, the physician does 
not point to the standard of pure health, and 
merely say that is what you should be. If he did, 



178 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

you would tell him that he was placed in the 
ward; not to tell you how far you are in a state 
of sickness, but to tell you how you may be 
restored to the health that you have lost. We 
are patients in a moral sense ; we are sufferers, 
because we are sinners ; and what we need is, 
not a re-publication of the law that we have 
broken, nor a re-exhibition in brighter light of a 
standard that we have not conformed to, or of an 
archetypal glory we have fallen from, but the 
manifestation of a curative, restorative process, 
by which the wrong may be righted, and the 
disease healed; in other words, an atonement 
and sacrifice by which our sins may be blotted 
out, and our nature renewed. All this is con- 
tained in the promise proclaimed in Paradise. 
Adam and Eve had the type of it in the slain 
animals, and in the cross and in Calvary we 
have the fact and fulness of it. 

It follows from all this, that our present life 
must be more or less a ceaseless struggle. The 
serpent's power, it is said, shall bruise the Sa- 
viour's heel. And what took place between 
Christ and Satan, is perpetuated in those who 
are Christ's and those who are Satan's. Well 
did our Lord say, " I am not come to send peace 



REDEMPTION. 



179 



on earth, but a sword." Whenever the church 
is very quiet, we have too much reason to fear it 
is very corrupt. Stir, agitation, conflict, battle, 
— these are the inevitable characteristics of an 
age in which the world feels that it is losing 
ground, and the church, overflowing with life, 
strives after her great and everlasting destiny. 
Two great eternities are at issue ; the battle- 
field is time ; souls are the prizes. How great 
must those souls be, for which two eternities 
battle ! how important is that creature for whom 
heaven and hell are in conflict ! and hoiv pre- 
cious is that promise which announces, that the 
issue of that battle is fixed and predetermined 
from everlasting ages; that Satan shall be 
utterly discomfited; that error shall be finally 
laid prostrate ; that all that is evil shall be 
rooted out of this earth, and that all that is 
bright, and beautiful, and holy, and happy, shall 
characterize it once more ; that whatever Satan 
has clouded shall be purified ; that whatever 
Satan has convulsed with fever, or infected 
with disease, shall regain perfect health ; that 
wherever the trail of the serpent is, there the 
foot-print of the King of kings shall be ; that 
wherever Satan's empire now is, there Christ's 
n 2 



180 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

kingdom shall spread, he shall reign for ever 
and ever, and put all things under him ; and the 
last enemy that he shall destroy is death, and 
when he has put this under him, then God in 
Christ shall be all in all ! (1 Cor. xv. 24—28.) 

We have an indication in this promise that 
Jesus must be more than man. I should infer 
from this very text, " The woman's seed shall 
bruise the serpent's head," that Christ must be 
God. It is asked, how ? In this way : Adam in 
the midst of a garden, in perfect innocence, in 
the most favourable circumstances in which hu- 
manity was ever placed, or could be placed, was 
tempted by Satan ; he yielded, and was over- 
come. But one was to emerge from Adam, who 
in a wilderness should be also tempted by Satan, 
in the most unfavourable circumstances, while 
clothed with a humanity that was no stranger to 
fatigue, and pains, and tears, steeped in sorrows, 
and penetrated by a thousand agonies : yet there, 
and in such circumstances, He overcame and 
discomfited the wicked one, and was more than 
conqueror, and finally nailed powers and princi- 
palities to his cross, and made a show of them 
openly. If then humanity in Adam fell before 
the tempter in the most favourable circumstances 



REDEMPTION. 



181 



in which, humanity could be placed, we must 
infer that the humanity which met the tempter 
in the most unfavourable circumstances, and 
bruised his head, and gloriously triumphed, 
must have been allied to God ; and that Jesus 
therefore was none less than God himself, " the 
"Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, 
the Prince of Peace." (Isa. ix. 6.) 

We learn that this promise and the gospel it 
contains are for all mankind. The first Gospel 
was preached, not to the Jews, for there w^ere no 
Jews in existence then — I mean, as distinguished 
from Gentiles, — but to all mankind, since it was 
preached to Adam and Eve as the represent- 
atives of all humanity. Every false creed is 
local ; but this glorious embassy of heaven, this 
musical promise of glad things, this offer of for- 
giveness to the guilty, has nothing in it of locality 
or restriction ; it is catholic in the noblest sense 
of that expression. It has all space for its 
parish, all ages for its action, and all men for its 
audience ; and all are welcome to taste of the 
living bread, and to eat of its fruits, and to par- 
ticipate in its enduring blessings. 

On whose side are we ? Are we with the ser- 
pent, or with the bruiser of the serpent's head ? 



182 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

This is a momentous question at all times ; it is 
emphatically so to the aged ; it is practically so 
to every young man and young woman. On 
whose side are you, dear reader ? I do not sup- 
pose that you are actively enlisted against the 
Saviour, but you need not to be reminded that 
he himself has said, that he who is not with him 
is against him, and that he who gathereth not 
scattereth. If therefore you neglect the great 
salvation, for all practical purposes you reject 
it ; and if you neglect or reject it, you may dis- 
guise it as you like, you may wear the uniform 
you please, you are on the serpent's side, and 
with his your head must be bruised; you are 
not upon the Saviour's side, nor with him des- 
tined gloriously and finally to triumph. But if 
you are now on the wrong side, there is no rea- 
son why you should be there a single day more. 
Christ asks the transference of yc-ur sympathies ; 
he bids you pass from the side where you ought 
not to be to that side where you are welcome to 
be. He asks no sacrifice, he asks no surrender, 
except that you will put on his uniform, that 
you will come under his banners, that you will 
ally yourselves to his cause, and that you will 
do it, not merely because it is duty, but because 



REDEMPTION. 



183 



it is instant, unspeakable, and enduring delight. 
If, therefore, I address any one who is careless 
or hostile, I ask, why do you continue so? 
What profit is there in the service of sin ? "What 
prospects of victory are there where God has 
predicted only defeat ? "What enjoyment is 
there in the service of sin? Is it not weariness ? 
It costs a man more to work his way to ruin, 
than ever it costs a Christian in sacrifice to find 
his way to heaven ? No one gets to ruin ex- 
cept amid protests from his conscience, struggles 
in his heart, warnings, remorse, regrets, repent- 
ance, and a management that requires so many 
tactics, such cleverness, such equivocation, such 
trouble, that I am sure it is an unhappy thing 
to be in the way that leads to woe, and that it 
must be the happiest of all things to have a single 
eye, a body full of light, our hearts set upon 
our home, and our treasure where our God and 
our Saviour is. If therefore you are on that 
side on which there is no happiness, and where 
the wages are only death, and the certain issue 
eternal disaster, defeat, and ruin, I invite you 
to become the soldier of the great Captain of 
the faith, to put on the whole armour of God, 
" having your loins girt about with truth, and 



184 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

having on the breastplate of righteousness ; and 
your feet shod with the preparation of the gos- 
pel of peace ; above all, taking the shield of 
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all 
the fiery darts of the wicked ; and taking the 
helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the word of God, stand stedfast, im- 
movable, knowing that your labour is not in 
vain in the Lord." (Eph. vi. 14 — 17 ; 1 Cor. 
xv. 58.) The service of Satan is misery upon 
earth, disappointment bitter and corrosive at the 
judgment-seat. The service of Christ is free- 
dom and happiness upon earth, and joy un- 
speakable and full of glory in eternity. Choose 
you this day, dear reader, whom you will serve. 
Decide. I could not remain a single day without 
determining whether this Christianity preached 
from so many pulpits, circulated in so many 
tracts, described in so many books, be a mere 
piece of priestcraft, a cunningly devised fable, or 
the wisdom, the inspiration, and the power of 
God. It can be nothing but the greatest lie, or 
the most instant, intense, and absorbing truth ; 
it is nothing between. He who feels neither en- 
thusiastic in the cause of Christ, nor fanatic in 
the cause of Satan, is an inconsistency, an inex- 



REDEMPTION. 



185 



plicable inconsistency ; he is neither cold nor 
hot, yet he is not less guilty. But the man who 
goes forth under the banner of the pope, or the 
infidel, to put down the religion of the Bible, is at 
least a consistent man ; so too he who goes forth 
with the name of Jesus in his heart, to cover the 
earth with his trophies, is a consistent man ; but 
anything between is a huge and gigantic incon- 
sistency, a contradiction, and a blunder. I can 
see but one method of escape from the wrath to 
come ; I know of no other ; that method which 
was preached in Paradise, and is proclaimed in 
the gospel — Christ Jesus. This is salvation ; 
and if it be not, there is no truth in the Bible, 
and no hope worth having in a Christian heart. 
But " we know whom we have believed, and are 
persuaded that he is able to keep that which we 
have committed unto him against that day ; 53 and 
that we have not followed cunningly devised 
fables, when we preached and you accepted 
Christ as all our salvation, and all our desire. 



CHAPTER VII. 



MISSIONARY DUTY* 

" Where is your heathen brother ? From his grave 
Near thy own gates, or 'neath a foreign sky, 
From the thronged depths of ocean's moaning wave, 

His answering blood reproachfully doth cry. 
Blood of the soul ! Can all earth's fountains make 
Thy dark stain disappear ? Stewards of God, awake ! " 

" And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he 
said, I know not : am I my brother's keeper ?" — Gen. iv. 9. 

The question itself, " Where is Abel thy 
brother?" is not a local or a temporary one. 
It may be asked in every age, uttered in every 
tongue, and addressed to every inhabitant of 
every latitude, from the rising of the sun to the 
going down of the same. Before, however, I 
immediately discuss it, or endeavour to show its 
bearing upon us, I would notice two or three 
preliminary facts. 

First, the earliest death on record was a sud- 
den one. Whether the heart be arrested by 
the stab of the assassin's sword, or by the 
touch of the finger of God, no doubt it is 
equally a sudden death. Life in such a case is 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



1ST 



not suffered gradually to uncoil : the spring is 
broken^ and the machinery stands still. But 
sudden death is no evidence of the disapproba- 
tion of God. TTe are apt to say, that the 
eighteen on whom the tower of Silo am fell 
must have been disapproved ; and, on the other 
hand, that they who escaped must have been 
approved by God. It is not so. The first saint 
upon earth who died, died suddenly ; and, there- 
fore, sudden death may be as much an evidence 
of special favour as of the reverse. Perhaps 
it is special favour. It is in most cases death 
without the pangs of dying ; it is leaping from 
the body beyond the horizon, and finding one- 
self at one bound amid the glories of a better 
and a brighter land. Sudden death is thus sud- 
den glory. Abel, the most distinguished saint 
of his day, was the first instance of sudden death. 

Another interesting fact strikes us here, the 
first death was that of a Christian. There is 
something beautifully touching in this. If the 
first death had been that of Cain, it would have 
been seen in all its horror. Up to this mo- 
ment, death was only known as a word, it was 
not known as a fact ; it was embosomed in the 
curse, it had not yet seized its victim : but if the 



188 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

first victim had been guilty Cain, the ungodly, 
man would have witnessed, perhaps, a spectacle 
too terrible for his yet unhardened sensibilities 
to bear ; he would have seen destruction enter 
as death physical, death spiritual, and death 
eternal, all the wages of sin, in one dread stroke. 
But when it came first upon the saint of God, it 
introduced itself, the sure evidence of the curse, 
not in the shape of the tyrant spectre, but rather 
under the sign of a peaceful sleep ; thus the 
first grave, notwithstanding the previous accom- 
paniments of cruelty, was irradiated by the rays 
of the Sun of righteousness, and was revealed in 
the splendour of those beams as a vestibule of 
glory, a porch of heaven. 

Yet the first death was that of a martyr, as if 
to tell us that the struggle between the woman's 
seed and the serpent had begun ; as if to reveal 
to us by a great fact, " In the world ye shall 
have tribulation." " Through tribulation ye 
must enter the kingdom." "Wherefore did 
Cain slay Abel? Because his own works were 
evil, and his brother's righteous." 

We thus learn three important facts. First, 
that sudden death is no more an evil than pro- 
tracted death ; and secondly, that the first death 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



189 



was that of a Christian, whereby Cod softened 
the curse, and mitigated it to the utmost ; and 
lastly, that it was also that of a martyr, to teach 
us that this world is not the place for the pre- 
sent triumph of light and love, for " a rest re- 
maineth " is not yet for the people of God. 

I now pass to the more immediate question 
before us. I assume that every man that has a 
want to be supplied, is my brother ; that every 
human being who needs something that I can 
easily i or even by sacrifice, bestow, is my bro- 
ther ; and when I am asked, " Where is thy 
brother? 5 ' an answer, not an echo, is demanded 
from me ; I pray it ever may be a far different 
one from that of Cain. 

But still, I must presume, there are various 
classes to whom that question may be addressed, 
and from whom various replies would come. 
Some men would answer, if I were to ask, 
" Where is thy brother ? " " What is that to me ? 
I have enough to do with myself; I have plenty 
to do with minding my own business ; I cannot 
attend to other people's affairs. What is that to 
me?" Suppose every person were of the same 
temper, this repulsive noli me tangere temper, this 
intense absorption in self, then all society would 



190 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

present only sharp, bristling points, each repel- 
ling all that was nearest to itself. Such things 
as hospitals for the sick, — those blossoms on the 
stem of life ; and asylums for the needy,- — those 
evidences of Christian charity ; and missionary 
societies for the ignorant and unenlightened,— 
those exponents of the value and vitality of the 
gospel of Christ, — would utterly disappear. 
Each man caring for his own wants, however 
small, and regardless of the wants of his brother, 
however weighty, would soon drive society into 
suicide. It would cease to cohere, because of 
the exhaustion of that only cement, confidence 
and mutual love, which prevents it from ex- 
ploding into fragments, and disappearing alto- 
gether from the earth on which it is reared. W e 
have, therefore, an interest in a brother, if we 
wish society itself to cohere. I presume no 
Christian would say, " What have I to do with 
a brother ? I have enough to do with myself." 
He would show thereby that he cannot be a 
subject of true religion, if such were his ex- 
pressions. 

But others will say, if the question, " Where 
is thy brother? 55 be put to them,—" You will 
find, 55 they will say, "there is not a single sufferer 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



191 



who is not so by his own misconduct. I will 
not give this applicant relief ; for I know it is 
his crimes, or his indolence, or some indiscretion 
in his past life, that have led him to want it." 
Suppose it be so, suppose every beggar you 
meet is a criminal, that poverty is in every case 
the fruit of sin, are you not to mitigate the suf- 
ferings of the child, because of the sins of the 
parent? are you to shut your eyes to present 
misery, however great, in order that you may 
open them to past delinquencies, however old, 
or however trivial ? Is it not enough that God 
exacts the penalty, are we to try to increase it ? 
Is it not God's prerogative to avenge ? Is it not 
man's noblest characteristic to have pity, com- 
passion, and forbearance ? And if God were to 
deal with us as we profess to deal with a bro- 
ther, where should we be, where should we 
eternally be, when time itself is no more ? 

Another, when the question is put to him,. 
"Where is thy brother?" would probably re- 
ply, r I have been so often disappointed, so often 
cheated, that I can submit to it no longer ; I 
am satisfied," he will say, " if I help that bro- 
ther who applies to me, I shall get no thanks 
for it." V ery likely not. And if you do good 



192 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

in order to get thanks for it, then what bet- 
ter are you than the Scribes and the Pharisees ? 
They love their friends, they assist their own 
companions ; but our Lord says, cc Love your 
enemies ; bless them that curse you : for if ye 
love them which love you, what reward have 
ye ? do not even the publicans the same ? And 
if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye 
more than others ? do not even the publicans 
so ? " If you do good only to anticipate reward 
upon the earth, very likely you will miss that 
reward in many a case where you expect it. 
But if you do good because of our Master in 
heaven, leaving the thanks to follow or not to 
come, as may be the influence of his grace, then 
we shall not be disappointed upon earth; and 
we shall show that magnificent, because Divine, 
spirit, which is indicated in the showers and the 
sunbeams that fall upon the just and upon the 
unjust. At the same time, I do not believe 
in the aphorism I have tried to reply to ; I do 
not hold that the general experience is that 
most men will be unthankful for benefits re- 
ceived. If you fling a shilling to a poor man, and 
speak to him in opprobrious language, surely 
you cannot expect much gratitude. He sees 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



193 



that you bestow your money, not as the exponent 
of your love, but to get rid of him : and to ex- 
pect thankfulness in such case is to expect what 
nature will not yield. But if you give your 
money, and give with it the expression of a 
sympathizing and a feeling heart, I believe you 
will get thanks. I do not think that society is 
utterly a pandemonium, though it is not 
altogether a paradise. In the natural heart, in 
its most distant aberration from God, there are 
unextinguished sympathies with its grand ori- 
ginal, that will respond with gratitude for benefits 
bestowed. And if the feet of mercy will more 
frequently tread the threshold of the needy, de- 
pend upon it, songs of gratitude will be oftener 
heard there. If there be no gratitude, the fault 
is less in the recipient of the bounty, and more 
in the manner and the language of him who be- 
stows it. 

If I ask another, " Where is thy brother ? " 
he will answer, that in religious matters, to pass 
to another sphere, every man's creed is his own 
business ; I have no right to interfere with him, 
I must let him take his own way to heaven, his 
religion being no business of mine. Suppose 
that God had felt so to us ; suppose that Paul 

o 



194 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

had said, Ci My own religion is my own matter, 
and the religion of the ancient Britons is good 
enough for them ; " or suppose that the distant 
heathen had been dealt wdth by us in the same 
manner, they had still been in their darkness. 
Man's religion is first is his own matter, but it 
never is exclusively his own matter. It is just 
like man's charity, it is to begin at home, but it is 
not to stop there. The first question we must ask 
is, " What must I do to be saved ? " but the very 
next is, " What must I do that my neighbour 
may be saved ? " But I put it to every man's 
feelings ; if a man has lost his way to heaven, 
and is groping in darkness, is it no business of 
ours to tell him what is the true way, when 
we know it? When a man is proceeding to 
the brink of a precipice blindfold, is it not our 
business to tell him that he w r ill be dashed to 
pieces on the rocks below if he proceed a few 
feet further ? Every privilege is given us, not 
for ourselves, but for others. God never made a 
man rich for himself ; he never gave a man a 
coronet for his own brow only ; he never gave a 
man religion for his own heart only. God's plan 
for evangelizing mankind is, to evangelize the 
individual, and then to make him the vehicle of 



MISSIONARY Dt'TY. 



evangelic light and evangelic love., until all within 
the reach of his power is enlightened, and satur- 
ated, and sanctified by his munificent influence. 
We are, therefore, made religious for others. 

If you should say, that if a man be perfectly 
sincere, in his religious views, it is enough : 
let him alone ; why disturb him ? This is a 
very favourite aphorism. We are all aware that 
the Mahometan is perfectly sincere in his ac- 
ceptance of the Koran ; that the Hindoo is per- 
fectly sincere, conscientious, and — what Chris- 
tians are not always — enthusiastic in his accept- 
ance of the Shaster ; many a Roman Catholic is 
self-sacrificingly sincere in his acceptance of the 
Missal and the Breviary. Well, what should 
all this teach us ? To honour the men, but 
no less to abhor the creed. The mail's sincerity 
is evidence how much good the Fall has not de- 
stroyed ; but the creed is proof how corrupt sin 
and superstition have made him. Because a man 
is sincerely wrong, I will love him for his sin- 
cerity, and I will try only the more to put his 
convictions right. Sincerity neither consecrates 
sin nor canonizes error. 

Where, then, is thy brother \ Xo apology, no 
excuse, is satisfactory to show that you have not 
o 2 



196 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

duties, obligations, responsibilities to him. And 
God only knows how much of the darkness that 
is in the lanes and alleys of this great city, how 
much of the heathenism that grows and thickens 
and deepens like a dark cloud over us, may 
be the result of our apathy, or our indifference, 
for which, in the sight of God, we are all and 
each responsible to him. 

But suppose, without reference to possible 
objections such as I have stated, I try to answer 
the question, "Where is thy brother ? " 

First, let me answer it, if I may so speak, 
geographically. Where is thy brother ? He is 
under Africa's suns, or he is just living, and no 
more, amid polar snows. He is amid the steppes 
of Tartary, — a savage ; or amid the swarthy mil- 
lions of Asia, — a devotee to superstition. Ignor- 
ant he is also in all cases of God ; his work-shop, 
the birth-place of his deities ; his religion, super- 
stition ; his soul, without God, without Christ, 
and without hope. And yet, that African, so 
bigoted, is thy brother ; that Tartar, so savage, 
is thy brother ; that worshipper of the wooden 
god in the little ee swamy house," as they call it, 
in Hindostan is thy brother ; and there is a link 
between that dark heathen and thee, which will 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



197 



only appear more luminous and real amid the 
light of a judgment-day. 

But let me look at the subject in another point 
of view ; let me regard the answer to the ques- 
tion in its religious aspect. Where is thy bro- 
ther ? He has left his slippers at the door, and 
he is prostrate on the floor of the mosque of 
Omar at Jerusalem, or the mosque of St. Sophia 
at Constantinople ; and his prayers, and praise, 
and creed are all in one fervent expression, — 
" God is great, and Mahomet is his prophet/' 
Or he is at St. Peter's at Rome, where the su- 
perstition is only revealed more palpably by the 
scattered lights of truth that are in it. In either 
case, that worshipper who counts his beads on 
the floor of St. Peter's, or that Moslem who 
shouts " God is great, and Mahomet is his pro- 
phet," on the floor of St. Sophia's, is thy bro- 
ther; and a responsibility towards him rests 
upon us, which we can no more shake our- 
selves loose from than we can shake off our 
immortality, or escape the certainty of our 
appearance at the judgment-seat of Christ. 
Or, perhaps, I might answer it in another 
way. He is in some dark lane, or in some 
miserable hovel in the streets of some great city, 



198 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

•with.- a large family, with a very small weekly 
income, living in a place where fresh air is a 
complete stranger, where the policeman is the 
most frequent visitor, where the drainage is so 
bad that the absence of cholera is a miracle, its 
presence a matter of course ; he has a wife and 
many children, he has no means of providing 
sufficiently for their food, much less the means of 
providing for their education. These children 
will be found on a Sunday morning, and on a 
Saturday evening, hanging about the streets in 
clusters, the ripe victims for the gaol, or the 
police station, or — not an inactive operator in 
such cases — the Roman Catholic priest. Those 
children are our children, that father is our 
brother ; and the very knowledge that he can- 
not help himself, nor his children, entails in- 
stant responsibility upon us to lend him a 
helping hand, and to provide for those children 
a suitable school. If we say, "We cannot accept 
it ; then we shall be made to feel it. Do you 
think that your taxes become lighter, because 
you escape giving a sovereign to our schools ? 
We shall find that the most expensive treatment 
of all is that by the policeman, and the gaol, 
and the penal colony; and that the most eco- 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



199 



riomical treatment for a nation to pursue, is to 
work through the school, the city missionary, 
the tract distributor, the district visitor. 

We shall soon discover that, not only is it the 
most economical, but it is the most healthy mode. 
You never can elevate a people physically, un- 
less contemporaneously you elevate them mo- 
rally. I am one of those who believe that there 
is a vast work to be done in raising the phy- 
sical condition of the people around us, before 
a great and triumphant work can be done in 
doing good for their souls. Positively, to go 
into some of the homes, and to speak about the 
soul while the body is diseased, and struggling 
with hunger, without fire, and without shelter, 
and without a pane of glass, in the cold and 
biting frost of winter, is impossible. You must 
first find a blanket to cover, and bread to give ; 
and then you will get a willing ear for the 
things that belong to his soul. I believe that 
the moment a city missionary, a tract dis- 
tributor, or a Sunday-school teacher is intro- 
duced, and as soon as these children, accus- 
tomed to all that is base and darkening in 
human society, are brought within the elevating, 
the ennobling, and the sanctifying influence of 



200 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Christian instruction, you strike a blow that 
will make the wilderness about you rejoice, and 
its most desert places to blossom even as the 
rose. 

Where is then thy brother ? He is the stray 
sheep that has gone from the fold, he is the poor 
prodigal feeding upon husks. And if you want 
to see what thy brother is, leave the picturesque 
description of the poet, close the beautiful 
romance, open the Scriptures, hear the verdict 
of Him who died for human kind, what is the 
condition of human nature, — a lost sheep, a 
wandering prodigal, an infidel Sadducee, a hypo- 
critical Pharisee, — perishing, dying, beyond the 
sound of light, and life, and truth, — and you 
will behold what a brother is. And if you want 
to see a sister, read the tale of the Turkish 
wife, study the picture of the Indian mother, 
or the life of the Hindoo widow ; and in that 
Turkish wife, in that Indian mother, in that 
Hindoo widow, you have the picture of your sis- 
ter. When you ask, where is thy brother ? or 
where is thy sister ? know that the broad road 
that leads to ruin is beaten smooth by brothers' 
and sisters' feet. The prison, the penal settle- 
ment, the Old Bailey, the Penitentiary, the tread- 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



201 



mill, the model prison — every cell of them is filled 
with those that are our brothers and our sisters. 
That home of poverty where all man's original 
affections are abased or broken, — that squalid 
hovel where horrid appetite alone holds its ter- 
rible supremacy, where fancy sheds no beauty, 
where faith creates no purity, where hope gives 
no consolation, where holiness has no sanctuary, 
where prayer has no altar, and the sabbath has 
no service, — that squalid home where the sun 
rises upon no morning prayer, and sets upon no 
evening praise, where intemperance makes man 
a fiend and woman a wreck, where beauty is 
turned to corruption, and all the gladness and 
the glory of humanity is gone, — that home con- 
tains those who are thy brethren. There, rich 
one, — there, great one, — there, noble and 
wealthy one, — is thy brother, — the same flesh, 
the same blood with thyself, — just what thyself 
would have been if thy circumstances had been 
otherwise ; and where, because thy circum- 
stances are different, thou art called upon to go 
as an angel of light, and life, and mercy ; and 
to rescue man from the brutality of sin, and en- 
franchise him with all the glory and the freedom 
of the children of God. Brothers sow our 



202 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

fields, brothers temper trie steel for our swords, 
brothers man our ships, brothers fight our 
battles. 

Let us hail in humanity one grand brother- 
hood, as we hail in Christianity one lofty Fa- 
therhood ; and feel that wherever a heart beats, 
there is a brother seeking for our sympathy, 
our assistance, and our aid, and to whom all 
are due. 

What is the first step to ennoble man, de- 
graded as we have just now spoken of him ? The 
very first step is to treat him kindly. The very 
plan to turn the earth into a hell, is to go near a 
brother w T ith suspicion, doubting very much 
what he says, though it may be right to inves- 
tigate ; suspecting every representation, which 
ought indeed to be examined ; acting upon the 
wretched principle, which, it has been said, is 
the practice of our Scotch countrymen, to sus- 
pect him to be a thief, and then wait till you 
prove him honest. This is the way to make him 
worse. Suspect him to be honest, and trust 
him, and then wait and see if he play the thief, 
is the way to make him better. To begin by 
suspecting a man to be dishonest, is just the very 
way to make him worse. You turn the inof- 



MISSIONARY DL r TY. 



203 



fensive worm, when you tread upon it, into a 
snake that will instantly rise and sting you to the 
heart. By this suspicion you tread out the last 
sparks of confidence, and you create that dense 
and terrible despair, in which all dark deeds are 
perpetrated. There is no other way of making 
society better, than the old way of loving it. 
And if that grand principle of lore were made 
the visible basis of all our movements to rege- 
nerate society, our progress would be much more 
rapid and complete. "Why was Christ so be- 
loved by the common people ? when the Pha- 
risees fled from him, when the Sadducees scoffed 
at him, it is said, C€ the common people heard 
him gladly." Because in that Divine heart 
every pang and sorrow of man found a resound- 
ing echo. Because men could go to Jesus, and 
feel that there was sympathy there, if there were 
sympathy nowhere in the world besides. 

Do not let any outward circumstances repel 
us from men. Sometimes human misfortune 
becomes so dreadful that disgust is excited, 
where there ought to be only deeper and more 
penetrating sympathy. If we have been made 
to differ, it is by Him whose sovereignty is seen 
in all. And because circumstances have cle- 



204 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

graded that person who seeks our charity on the 
plea that he is a brother, do not think that he is 
in his real substance a worse being than your- 
self. Kingly men are found at looms, and at 
mills, and in shops. Queenly women are found 
among sempstresses. Noble hearts beat under 
very plebeian rags. The difference between the 
diamond that is set in the queen's crown and 
the diamond that is buried in the earth is sim- 
ply in the polishing ; all the difference between 
the humblest and the most degraded poor man, 
and the most exalted prince that sways a sceptre, 
is not in him, but out of him. God has made 
us all of one flesh ; and the readiest way to 
make our own splendour more glorious is to 
raise our brother to a participation of it. And if 
you can say, What will become of the world 
when all become diamonds, and when all are so 
educated that they will not work? it will be 
time enough to answer that question when the 
result has taken place ; and if they should all 
be diamonds, why then it will be an approxima- 
tion to that apocalyptic temple, which is built 
only of precious stones : and when all will not 
only be brethren, but saints by grace, and heirs 
of the kingdom of God and of his Christ. 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



205 



Never does greatness appear so great as when 
it lends a portion of itself to make littleness 
somewhat less. Never does wealth appear so 
holy as when it is consecrated to make the 
miserable happy, and the ignorant to learn the 
truth which alone makes free. It is said in 
classic history, that a statuary, who resolved to 
cut out of the Parian marble a female figure, 
the most beautiful and graceful that the world 
ever saw or the poet ever dreamed of, induced 
all the beauties of Greece to come to him in suc- 
cession, while he selected from each the feature 
that was in the highest perfection, and trans- 
ferred it to the marble on which he was work- 
ing ; and when this beautiful thing was finished, 
it became the admiration of Greece and of the 
utmost bound of Europe. But each Greek 
female felt that she was honoured by having 
some feature of her own in that exquisite cre- 
ation of the statuary's chisel. So, when you 
can look into our schools, when you can look 
into society, and feel that some portion it is, 
by grace, the creation, under God, of what 
you have sacrificed and done, you will have 
more than a reward in the result, and you 
will know and taste a happiness you never tasted 



206 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

before, — the inestimable luxury of baying done 
good. 

But tbere are those who have no doubt of 
these things, who feel a sympathy with a bro- 
ther wherever that brother is. Such will regard 
it as one of the best and noblest expressions of 
their sympathy to aid in educating the young. 
Those children in the lanes and alleys of St. Giles' 
are not yile weeds to be trodden down, or cast 
into the fire, or thrown to Botany Bay across the 
sea into your neighbour's garden. They are but 
trampled flowers, — flowers as beautiful as those 
that grow in your own sheltered garden, if they 
had the same soil, and the same sun, and the same 
sweet air : and all we ask is, that you would just 
gather up those trodden-down flowers, and re- 
place them under the beams of the true Sun, that 
you would put them in a wholesome air ; and 
they will become yet the ornaments, where now 
they are the pests of the neighbourhood ; and 
will be transplanted into the Paradise of God, 
and under the shadow and the shelter of the 
Tree of Life that grows in the midst of it. The 
children of to-day are the future inhabitants of 
our different colonies ; and if we send them out 
converted and Christianized, instead of being 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



207 



repealers of the connexion between the parent 
country and the distant colonies, they will be 
indissoluble links between them : these children- 
will be the champions of a throne under the 
shadow of which they have been blessed, and 
sticklers for the national institutions which 
have been to them springs of refreshment ; we 
shall look back upon the schools we have built, 
and the sacrifices we have made, with a joy far 
greater than that with which a student looks 
back upon his college, or an architect upon his 
magnificent creation, or the sentimentalist upon 
the beautiful cathedral, or the statesman upon 
successful policy : for in such cases we have 
been instrumental in adding subjects to the king- 
dom of God, and building up living temples 
that will last for ever and for ever. 

If we let the stray children alone, if we say, 
We will not be the keepers of them, Satan will 
not let them alone, he will keep them ; the 
emissaries of socialism, and infidelity, and super- 
stition will not let them alone, they will look 
after them ; the gaol will not let them alone, it 
will hold them. And what, I ask, is more awful 
than to see some dozen children, seven or ten 
years of age, brought into a police court, be- 



208 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE ELOOD. 

cause they have done what they scarcely had an 
idea of being wrong ; because they have picked 
* a pocket, which they thought just as natural as to 
eat a dinner ? And because they have done this, 
they are seized and sent to Bridewell ; and what 
is the result ? They are lost ; none will take 
them into the shop as apprentices, or into our 
houses as servants ; they are indelibly branded. 
Can you wonder that they grow up more con- 
firmed and desperate criminals ? Now, if that 
child, instead of being left to pursue the habits 
of the wicked men by whom it is surrounded, 
had been admitted among the children of day 
and Sunday schools, so far from growing up a 
burden on our taxes, a curse to our country, and 
miserable, oh deeply miserable to itself, would 
have grown up a blessing, a benefactor, an orna- 
ment in the land to which it belongs. 

It may be, that some past word one of us has 
spoken is at this moment reverberating in some 
dark lane of London. Some evil deed which 
you have done may at this moment be casting 
its baleful shadow over some home, or family, or 
neighbourhood, or parish. Something that you 
have said, or patronized, or the course you have 
pursued, may be leaving disastrous, poisonous, 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



209 



soul-destroying effects in some place that me- 
mory may forget, but that conscience -will one 
day feel. Then, you are verily guilty concern- 
ing your brother ; you are guilty, not of neg- 
lecting him, but in that you have poisoned him. 
You ask, what is to be done ? The word cannot 
be unspoken, the deed cannot be undone, the 
shadow cannot be recalled ; but you may redeem 
the time, you may repent of the sin, you may 
make the reparation that you can, inadequate as 
it must be, by labouring to counteract the evil 
you have left, by the good, the beneficence, and 
the truth that you now apply through that in- 
strumentality which is nearest, readiest, and 
most effective for the purpose. Where then is 
thy brother ? may suggest recollections of the 
past as well as duties for the present. 

In looking at this solemn subject immediately 
before us, one of the first feelings that we 
ought to entertain on a retrospect of what we 
have done, and what we have left undone, is 
that of true and genuine repentance. " T\ r e are 
verily guilty concerning our brother," is the 
language that becomes us all. 

And, in the next place, the way to show that 
genuine repentance is to commit ourselves to 



210 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

every beneficent effort to spread the truth that 
elevates, the religion that reclaims, the prin- 
ciples that save. Suppose we do not yet see 
from the schools we aid, or the missions we sup- 
port, a single good result, this would be no 
reason for our withdrawing our support. We 
are very prone to judge of duty by visible ef- 
fects. I do not believe that either sudden con- 
version or sudden good is always the most sub- 
stantial and enduring. God's great law is, 
cc One soweth and another reapeth." I am not 
responsible for the soil ; God alone can change 
it. I am not responsible for the harvest ; God 
will take care of it. All that I am respon- 
sible for is sowing the seed. Man's is the 
terrestrial labour, God's promise is the celestial 
blessing. Let each do his duty, and leave God 
to crown that duty with success. And is not 
this illustrated in our own experience ? We are 
reaping at this moment blessings that our fore- 
fathers have sown. Their labours had no instant 
success. Pentecost itself, when so many thou- 
sands were converted in one day, — so glorious in 
our recollections, — was not the harvest of the 
seed that Peter sowed that day. Our common im- 
pression, when we read the Acts, is, that Peter's 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



211 



sermon was so blessed that it produced a Pen- 
tecost. I believe that Peter's sermon merely 
brought to a focus lights that were already- 
struggling and scattered in the minds of his 
hearers; and that Pentecost was the result of 
all that Jesus did, and taught, and said, as well 
as what the apostles preached ; in short, that 
Peter only struck the last blow, which was 
the crowning one. The Reformation itself of 
the sixteenth century was not the creation of 
Martin Luther. He sowed ; but I have no 
doubt that he also reaped what had been sown 
by reformers long before him. And when we 
hear of sudden conversions attributed to one 
sermon, we may depend upon it, it was not the 
result of that single sermon : the seed had been 
sown by the dead, by those that have gone to 
their rest, — sown ten, twenty years before ; and 
then, that last sermon put everything in that 
light which God blessed, and made the crowning 
and the triumphant one. So, we must be satisfied 
to sow blessings that others shall reap. And no 
one can calculate the practical results of sowing 
in the infant mind the seeds of a Christian and 
a thorough education. The seeds will grow up 
in after-years, when the early lesson-book, and 
p 2 



212 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the first school, are utterly forgotten. We believe 
that the great hope under God for the regenera- 
tion of society, as far as it can be regenerated in 
the present dispensation, is less in the preaching 
of the pulpit, and more in the teaching of the 
school. The preacher finds men all hard, 
sharp, defined ; but the teacher finds children 
ductile, easily impressed, to whom he may 
give a tone, a direction, and an impulse, which 
time will not easily alter. Our ministers teach 
lessons that may be soon forgotten ; but our 
teachers train the young, — and that training 
will give a bias, a habit, an inclination, not soon 
let go. But the question is not, whether our 
children, or the children in the streets, shall be 
trained ; for it will very soon be seen that if 
they are not trained in our schools, they are 
being trained on the streets ; if they are not 
trained by our teachers, they are by pick- 
pockets and thieves ; if they are not being 
trained in the Bible, they will be in the sharp- 
est methods of transferring other people's pro- 
perty to their own credit or behalf. And 
therefore, it is not a question whether they 
shall be trained ; the question is, whether they 
shall be trained aright, or wrong. How they 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



213 



have been trained will soon make itself apparent 
by the channels in which their future life will 
run. Those channels will contain either the 
fruitful river, with the green verdure and the 
fragrant blossom on its banks, or the devastating 
torrents in the barren gully, that destroy and 
tear down everything. And who knows, but 
from the coming wrecks of nations there may 
be reflected our sins ? Never let us forget that 
the crimes of 1853 may be the rebound of our 
neglect in 1852. We are linked to future ge- 
nerations; we are responsible for those gener- 
ations in the sight of God. It is true, where 
we do not see very grand results, we are very 
apt to misjudge. How magnificent was the Crys- 
tal Palace ! how grand were the productions of 
Austria ! how delicate were the fabrics of France ! 
how manly and massive w r ere the creations of our 
father-land ! and we said, What a wonderful 
thing was that fairy palace ! Angels on their 
wings, as they proceed on their errands of mercy, 
may have swept past the fairy palace in Hyde 
Park, as a very poor and paltry thing ; and may 
have given their attention to the seven or eight 
hundred children connected with some school, 
and there have seen a moral spectacle of beauty 



214 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and of grandeur, which no genius or gifted 
mind can create. We too have diamonds to 
show in our ragged schools, — rough, I admit, 
some of them very rough ; but capable of ex- 
quisite polish, and meant yet, through the bless- 
ing of God, to hold places in the diadem of the 
King of kings, when the Koh-i-noor, the most 
magnificent diamond of the Crystal Palace, shall 
be ground to powder, and swept away amid the 
debris of the things of the earth. Let us then 
see in a work a magnificence lasting in propor- 
tion as it is moral. The builder builds for a cen- 
tury ; we, for eternity. The painter paints for 
a generation ; we, for ever. The poet sings for 
an age; we, for ever. The statuary cuts out 
the marble that soon perishes ; let us try to cut 
out the likeness of Christ to endure for ever and 
ever. A hundred thousand men were employed 
in Egypt to construct a pyramidal tomb for a dead 
king ; let us feel that we are engaged in a far 
nobler work in constructing temples for the 
living God. In my humble judgment, the 
poorest parish school in our native land, with 
no other ornaments than the dew-drops of the 
morning to gild it, and the sun-beams to shine 
upon it, is a nobler spectacle than the loftiest 



MISSIONARY DUTY. 



215 



European cathedral, with its spires glistening in 
the setting and the rising suns of a thousand 
years. We estimate the magnificence of a thing 
not by its exterior beauty, which is evanescent, 
but by its inner contents, and its ultimate moral 
effects, which endure for ever and for ever. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE PROTO-MARTYR. 

" Flung to the heedless winds, 

Or on the waters cast, 
Their ashes shall be watched, 

And gathered at the last. 

" And from that scattered dust, 

Around us and abroad 
Shall spring a plenteous seed 

Of witnesses for God. 

" Still, still though dead they speak, 

And trumpet-tongued proclaim, 
To many a wakening land, 

The one availing name." 

"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, 
by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his 
gifts : and by it he being dead yet speaketh." — Heb. xi. 4. 

It is remarkable that, after the Fall, Adam 
passes away. His name ceases to be mentioned, 
his biography is no more told ; nor, except in 
connexion with great truths, and the mode of 
the sinner's acceptance by the second Adam, is 
he referred to at all. 

We trace what Adam was by his image, too 
faithfully developed in his progeny ; among 
them it is reflected even in its most terrible pro- 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



217 



portions and shape. The first evidence of 
Adam's sin after the Fall was the quarrel of two 
brothers. Its first direct fruit was murder, 
"Cain rose up, and slew his brother Abel." So 
that we see sin after the Fall — sin and death — 
redemption and life. " In the day that thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die 99 was literally 
fulfilled ; " The woman's seed shall bruise the 
serpent's head 99 was no less strictly illustrated 
in the faith, the confidence, the meekness, the 
martyrdom of righteous Abel. 

Both brothers recognised the duties and the 
obligations of Christian worship. Their trades 
are specified in relation to the outward world ; 
their practices are also here recorded with re- 
spect to religion. How were they taught the 
truths of religion ? How did Abel know there 
was a God? How did Cain follow out and 
exercise his convictions in worshipping a God ? 
There was no written revelation, no Bible, to 
which they could appeal. The only way in 
which they were taught was in that first school, 
— which is after all the best, — the fireside ; and 
under those first teachers, — after all, the most 
affectionate, — Christian and righteous parents. 
There they learned that there was a God; that 



218 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

their first duties consisted in adoration of him, 
and in loyalty and allegiance to him. Even 
Cain, though he had no soul filled with the 
fear of God, had been so drilled and habituated 
to the outward practice, that when his heart 
apostatized from God, his hand still persisted in 
presenting an offering to God, — so important is 
early habit. The first impression made upon a 
child often gives tone to his whole after-life. 
The least seed sown in infancy grows up and 
bears its fruit in grey hairs and in old age. 
Habit, even man has remarked in his aphorisms, 
is a second nature ; and when that habit is in a 
right direction, and endowed and blessed of 
God, there is nothing so lasting, no power so 
beneficial. 

God accepted the offering of Abel, ajid did 
not accept the offering of Cain. We learn 
here, at least, that all religion, however out- 
wardly and apparently good, is not equally 
acceptable with God. Both these brothers re- 
cognised a God. Both recognised and practised 
the duty of worshipping that God. Both of 
them were — as the world would say, looking at 
the outward aspect — religious men ; and yet, 
there was a vast difference where men saw none, 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



219 



and God's acceptance of the one, and his re- 
jection of the other, showed that that difference 
was a vital one. It is not true, that if a man 
worship God, it matters not whether he be 
Mahometan, or Eomanist, or Protestant, or 
Socinian. There is an inner difference that 
God sees, when man can see no outer one. 
Cain brought his offering first, and showed the 
greatest zeal, as far as we can judge ; and yet, 
Abel's was an accepted offering, and Cain's a 
rejected offering. What we believe is as im- 
portant as what we do ; for a wrong faith leads 
God to reject the possessor of it. A true faith 
alone is able to offer an acceptable sacrifice unto 
God. 

The church of Christ was in the beginning 
just what it is now, and will be to the end, till 
the great Lord of it come, and put all right — a 
mixed church. Here is the first church. Cain 
and Abel had no magnificent cathedrals to meet 
in. They had no beautiful architectural church. 
They had no outward conventional, established 
ceremony, or rite, or liturgy, or psalm, or 
hymn. There were none of these things ; and 
yet there was a church ; there was true worship, 
and false w r orship ; there was the first congrega- 



220 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tion of professors and believers of the gospel of 
Christ. What the church was then, it has been, 
and will be to the end.. This succession has 
never lost a link — the succession of Cain, and 
the succession of Abel. Then the tares grew 
in the same field with the wheat ; the bad fish 
in the same net with the good ; the sheep and 
the goats will browse together, till the great 
Shepherd come, and put the one upon his right, 
and the other upon his left. Yet, if we refuse 
to join a church till we find a pure one, we 
shall have to wait till the millennium. It is not 
to be in this dispensation. The great Master 
speaks to many a hot zealot in such tender and 
glorious words as these : " Do not go in your zeal 
to pull up the tares, lest in pulling them up, you 
pull up the wheat also : let both grow together 
till the Lord of the harvest come." It is each 
man's duty to see that his heart is right with 
God : he should be anxious to know what is in 
him, not what is around him, to have more intro- 
spection into his own conscience, to see if that 
be right in his own sight, rather than to have a 
cautious, critical investigation to see whether A 
is what he should be, or whether B is what he 
professes. The church of Jesus Christ, we are 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



221 



told,, is a mixed body, and it will continue to 
be so till One, having the authority, make the 
separation. 

The place of worship is nothing, the worship- 
pers are all. Our Lord has most truly defined 
it, (< Wherever two or three are met in my 
name r? — and Cain and Abel met in Christ's 
name, they were professed followers, one a true, 
and the other not a true, follower of Christ — - 
" Wheresoever two or three meet in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them." Now this is 
the root of a Christian church. All beyond 
this is development for convenience, for order, 
for decency, for use : but the first Christian 
church — the normal idea of a Christian church 
— is, " Where two or three are met in my 
name/*' The architect builds the house; but 
unless the queen consent to dwell in it, it is 
not a palace. The builder raises the cathedral ; 
but unless the Lord of glory come down and 
consecrate it, it is no church. It is not dead 
stones, nor is it carved rafters, nor yet exquisite 
imagery, that makes a church ; but it is a com- 
pany of men who fear and love the Saviour, 
meet in his name, rely on his intercession, and 
seek his blessing. In such a case, whether 



222 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

it meet in a barn, in a dungeon, in the cata- 
combs of Rome, on the hill-side, on the high- 
way — there is a true church of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The visible church appeared thus early. 
The Christian church is not the creation of 
Martin Luther, of Paul, of Isaiah, or of Abra- 
ham ; it began the instant sin and grace were in- 
troduced in the world. Its external names have 
varied, but the thing has been the same. There 
are throughout the world those, who are called 
Greeks, and Romans, and Jews, others who are 
called Christians, and Protestants; but there 
is man running through all — the great aboriginal 
thing that is in all, that cannot be separated 
from any. So we have the Christian church, the 
Patriarchal church, the Jewish church, the Pro- 
testant church ; but it is the same church with 
different names, and different phases, presenting 
different aspects. We have the Red Sea, the 
Black Sea, the White Sea, the Mediterranean 
Sea, the German Ocean, the Atlantic ; but it is 
the same sea in its different relations locking 
and interlocking with the dry land. It was the 
church of Christ when Abel was its minister, its 
true son, and its martyr. The Christian church 
now has different forms and aspects ; but it is 



THE PROTO-MARTYR. 



223 



the same church, because the same substantial 
creed, the same Saviour, the same Lord, and the 
same hope. 

We look next at the respective sacrifices. 
Why was Cain's rejected? Why was Abel's ac- 
cepted? I answer, Cain's was rejected because 
he had not faith. But does God reject a man 
and his soul because he has not a form of belief? 
We answer, Yes : he did not believe in things 
unseen, or things hoped for ; Cain did not be- 
lieve in a Saviour, because he did not believe 
that the woman's seed should bruise the ser- 
pent's head — the great promise that God made 
amid the wrecks of Paradise, and that gilded its 
decay with an aureole of unearthly glory. " The 
woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head," 
meant, There is a coming Saviour. Now Abel 
had faith in this ; Cain had no faith in this ; 
and if no belief in Christ, then no belief or faith 
in sin, nor in the depth, and dye, and wicked- 
ness of sin. In fact, Cain, to use a modern ex- 
pression, ignored the Fall. He rejected the fact 
as a thing that had not been ; or, as many people 
do now regard the advent of the Saviour, as 
a truth like that of Alexander the Great, an his- 
torical person with whom they have no con- 



224 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

nexion. He looked upon the world as if the Fall 
had never been, as if ruin had never smitten its 
heart, as if all things were, in his day, precisely 
as they stood when Adam and Eve walked in 
Paradise, and responded to the voice of their 
Father, whose footsteps they heard at morning 
and at eventide. We not only gather that one 
offered by faith an acceptable sacrifice, and the 
other, through want of faith, a rejected sacrifice ; 
but we infer this from the very nature of their 
offerings. Cain took of the fruits and flowers 
of the ground and offered them unto God. I 
have no doubt that this was one of Adam's and 
Eve's offerings before they fell ; and Cain con- 
tinued the same practice, rejecting the fact of a 
great disruption, treating it as if it had never 
been ; and therefore, when Cain was about to 
offer to God, he walked forth at the sun-rising, 
and gathered flowers, not yet so blasted as ours 
are, because sin had not then made such in- 
roads into creation as it has since made. He 
gathered the most beautiful flowers that still 
grew beneath the cherubim that guarded the 
gates of Eden from access. He wove these 
flowers into a garland; he laid that garland 
upon the altar of God, and he stood before 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



£25 



Him, and said, " God, thy smiles gave to these 
flowers their exquisite tints. Thy breath, O 
God. gave to these roses this delicious fragrance. 
Thy fingers and thy great wisdom shaped every 
petal; and trimmed it as exquisitely as if thy 
wisdom had nothing else to do. And I take 
these flowers. Great Creator, Great Preserver, 
and I lay them upon thy altar, as an offering 
expressive of my belief in thee as the Creator of 
all ? and of my trust in thee as the Preserver of 
all. Amen." The offering was rejected, and the 
offerer too. 

Ahe^ whose trade was a shepherd, did not 
take what Cain took, nor did he join in Cain's 
offering. Abel was a Protestant, protesting 
against the service of Cain, because a wrong one. 
And, therefore, Abel, when he offered to God, 
separated the firstlings of his flock. He took, 
in other words, the most beautiful and the most 
healthy and the most unblemished lamb of his 
flock,— and what did he do ? What human na- 
ture, at the first blush, would have recoiled from. 
He plunged his knife into that innocent crea- 
ture's throat, he laid it a victim on the altar, and 
he said, " God, my Father, with my brother 
Cain, I, too, own thee as my Creator, and as 

Q 



226 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

my Preserver ; but I go further than my brother 
Cain. I have sinned. O Father, sin hath entered 
into the world, and death by sin, and I slay this 
lamb in token of my belief that I, too, deserve 
to die ; and I offer this my lamb to thee in token 
of, and to prefigure, the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. And I look to thee, 
O God, to take away that sin which must other- 
wise sink me for ever, by that blood which 
must be shed in the fulness of time, without the 
shedding of which there is no remission, and by 
the cleansing efficacy of which I may be pre- 
sented before thee without spot or blemish, or 
any such thing." God accepted Abel's offering, 
and the offerer too. Now, if we had no Bible 
to guide us, we should say, Cain offered the 
most beautiful and acceptable offering, and he 
ought to have been accepted ; and if ignorant 
of .the Bible, we should say, How is it possible 
that God could accept the painful destruction of 
an innocent and inoffensive lamb ? The answer 
is, Cain's offering showed, if we had not the re- 
cord of the text, that he had no faith in the Fall, 
or in the entrance of sin, or in the promise of a 
Saviour, or in cleansing through his blood. And 
Abel's offering evinced that he had faith, or be- 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



lieved in death, by sin. and accepted by faith 
that Saviour slain from the foundation of the 
world, by whose blood, Abel, the first martyr, 
and the very last in the history of our world, 
must be equally cleansed and accepted by God. 

We discover, in this one fact, the origin of ani- 
mal sacrifices. We see that man, left to his own 
suggestions, would not likely have thought that 
a good God could approve of the slaughter, the 
painful slaughter, of an inoffensive animal ; that 
it must therefore have been taught him by God, 
or he never would have practised it. I hold, 
therefore, that, in heathen countries, where ani- 
mal sacrifices are found, we have not the in- 
vention of man, but traditional usages, borrowed 
from the rubric of an original or God-taught age. 
That it was so, — that they were taught by God to 
offer these sacrifices, is plain from this one fact, — 
Adam and Eve were clothed, we are told, with 
the skins of animals. For what purpose did they 
slay these animals ? They did not eat flesh till 
after the Deluge ; and therefore the inevitable 
inference is, that these animals were killed for 
sacrifices ; and that the first pair were clothed 
with their skins, as prefigurative of the necessity 
of their being clothed with the spotless robe of 
Q 2 



228 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the lamb, slain in the fulness of time. If we in- 
vestigate the Levitical economy, we shall find 
there, that the offering of lambs, and goats, and 
bullocks, was the every-day duty of the priests 
of God ; that it was a divine appointment, and 
therefore not the invention of man, but the in- 
spiration of his Maker. God had no more plea- 
sure in the slaughter of a lamb than in the 
gathering of flowers — one would suppose less. 
Evidently therefore these victims were appointed 
to be slain, not for God's sake, but for man's 
sake ; man needed to have it riveted in his very 
soul, imprinted deeply on his heart, by seeing 
constantly the awful fact, that without shedding 
of blood there was no remission of sins ; and 
that, until the Lamb should come, in the fulness 
of time, in whose blood there would be redemp- 
tion, it would be his duty to carry on these pre- 
figurative services. 

Abel's sacrifice was accepted, because of his 
belief in these great truths ; Cain's sacrifice was 
not accepted, because of his disbelief in them. 
In other words, Cain's belief was, that the social 
disturbances, the agonies of nature, and the 
world waiting to be delivered, were just as they 
should be— the normal state of creation, and as 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



229 



God meant it to be. In a word, his thoughts 
were those of some modern sceptics, only they 
have expressed them with much greater elo- 
quence, that cc all things are in a state of perfect 
optimism ; " that they were never better, and 
never can be ; whereas, Abel's belief was, that 
God made all things holy and happy, peace 
within man's conscience, and harmony without 
in man's world ; but that sin had enter ed, and 
death by sin, and disturbed the world ; while 
he expected a deliverer to come, who should re- 
trieve creation from its ruin, and reinstate man 
in his primitive relations to God. The one had 
that faith which believed God's word ; the other 
had that faithlessness which believed his own 
illogical reasoning, and its crude inferences. 

We see from all this, that the first thing to 
be accepted is the offerer; the next thing, is 
the offering. It is not true that Abel was ac- 
cepted because of his offering, or that Cain was 
rejected because of his. The one was first ac- 
cepted, and therefore he presented an accept- 
able offering : the other was first rejected, and 
therefore he presented a rejected sacrifice. The 
first was accepted because he was a believer in 
Christ, and his offering was the evidence of it. 



280 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

The second was rejected because .he was a dis- 
believer in Christ, and the offering that he pre- 
sented was an evidence that he was such. Their 
offerings were the evidences of their respective 
personal states ; God accepted the one, and re- 
jected the other, because of those who presented 
them. 

We learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
that " Abel obtained witness that he was right- 
eous/' God thus testified that he was righteous. 
Our blessed Lord, speaking of Abel in the Gos- 
pel of Matthew, speaks of " the blood of right- 
eous Abel ; " and the evangelist John, speak- 
ing of Abel in his Epistle, speaks of Cain slaying 
Abel,—" And wherefore slew he him ? Because 
his own works were evil, and his brother's 
righteous." Now in what respect was Abel 
accounted righteous, " By it he received the tes- 
timony that he was righteous," yet a righteous- 
ness that was not his own, but a righteousness 
that was imputed to him. This was the great 
standing doctrine of the Church before the Flood, 
this it was also that Martin Luther taught at the 
dawn of Protestantism, that we are counted 
righteous only by the righteousness of Christ 
imputed to us and offered to us. The great sa- 



THE PHOTO -MARTYR. 



231 



crifice that Abel's offering foreshadowed is this, 
that he that knew no sin was made sin for us, 
by having our sins laid upon his head, that we 
who are sinners might be made righteous in 
him, by having his righteousness laid upon us. 
Jesus Christ in our place bore our sins, and de- 
livered us from the curse of a broken law. In 
our place he obeyed the law, and entitled us to 
all the blessings and the results of an obeyed 
law. What we deserved as sinners, Christ has 
suffered for us. What we owed as creatures, 
Christ has done for us. And therefore salva- 
tion is, in its initial step, in its vital nature, — not 
doing something to be saved, not suffering some- 
thing to be forgiven, — but receiving, by faith, 
the perfect righteousness of Him whose right- 
eousness is for all and upon all that believe ; for 
there is no difference. It is most important that 
we should hold fast, and clearly and sharply 
define, this great truth, that our only title to 
heaven, the only ground on which we are 
admitted into heaven, is the finished work of the 
Son of God. And if we feel, in all its glory, 
that we are complete in Christ, that we have a 
complete title, that there is no flaw, defect, or 
deficiency in it, nothing needing to be added to 



232 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

it, nothing to be done with it, but simply to 
apply it, — if we hold this fast, we shall never be 
tempted to add rites or ceremonies in order to 
be more easily justified ; or to think that our 
sorrows, our tears, our sacrifices, our chari- 
ties will contribute one jot to our acceptance 
with God. Good works follow and are the 
evidences of this state of acceptance ; but this 
state of acceptance is the first thing ; and so 
wherever we are truly and really justified by 
trust and faith in the finished work of the 
Saviour, it is just as impossible that good works 
can fail to follow, as it is that heat can fail to 
emanate from the kindled fire, or sun-beams to 
flow from the risen sun. Whatever good, then, 
Abel had done, he regarded as no part of the 
righteousness by which he was justified; and 
whatever pain Abel had suffered, he regarded 
as no part of that atonement which was to be 
made for sin. He was counted righteous before 
he was made righteous. In other words, he 
was justified by Christ's righteousness without 
him, before he was sanctified by the Holy Spirit 
within him. It is thus that we, like Abel, must 
be justified. Justification by faith, which Mar- 
tin Luther preached, and preached so clearly, so 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



233 



constantly/ so emphatically, was not a new doc- 
trine. It was only the excavation of an old 
doctrine that was buried. It was not the cre- 
ation of a new star ; it was merely the clearing 
of the clouds from the bright star that had been 
standing over-head from the days of righteous 
Abel. It was not something that man had never 
seen or known before ; it was only the exhi- 
bition of that which man's superstition had 
clouded. When men talk of a new church be- 
ing made at the Reformation, they talk in per- 
fect ignorance. The Council of Trent made 
an attempt in 1560 to reform the church. 
They were specially summoned, cardinals and 
archbishops and bishops, to reform the church 
in its head and its members. The Council of 
Trent met to reform the church ; and Martin 
Luther, Zwingle, and Knox, and Latimer, and 
Ridley, all set about to do what the Council of 
Trent had set them a precedent of — reforming 
the church. Both parties met to reform it ; 
but the result was, that tne Council of Trent 
deformed it, and Calvin and Luther reformed 
it. In the first case, you have the church made 
worse than it was already. In the other case, 
you have all the errors and incrustations of the 



S34 THE CHURCH BEFOBE THE FLOOD. 

church cast away from it. The Reformation is 
not older than the sixteenth century ; Chris- 
tianity is as old as the days of Abel. The re- 
formation of the church, the exhibition of the 
church in its apostolic purity, was the object and 
attainment of the Reformers. It is of no use to 
say that Luther was passionate, and that Cran- 
mer once went back again to the superstitions 
from which he had emerged. It is of no use to 
plead that our Eeformers had many great faults. 
The wonder is, that, coming out of so bad a 
school as that of Romanism, these men had not 
more faults. The splendid heritage vindicated 
and transmitted by their toils was not because 
they had no faults, but in spite of their having 
faults. We therefore conclude, that this great 
truth, which is the glory of the church of Christ, 
around which its brightest hopes collect and 
rally, and on which the superstructure of its 
happiness must be built—- justification by faith 
alone in the righteousness of Jesus Christ — was 
an ancient doctrine, a primitive dogma, the hope 
of Abel, and the joy of all the members of the 
Church before the Flood. 

God accepted the one, and rejected the other ; 
but what was the result of his doing so ? 



THE PEOTO-MARTYR. 



235 



Abel's meekness, charity, forbearance, submis- 
sion, and love, and gratitude, were all increased 
by God's acceptance of his offering ; but Cain's 
hatred, malice, ill-will, and all uncharitableness, 
were inflamed and exasperated by the rejection 
of his, especially as contrasted with the visible 
acceptance of his brother's offering. Thus it 
comes to pass, that the very virtues of the good 
are their worst faults, their greatest crimes, in 
the eyes of the wicked. Thus the excellence of 
one that is hated, is the very fuel that feeds the 
jealousy of him that hates him. We never can, 
by any progress in excellence, allay the envy or 
the jealousy of the depraved. The only way is 
to pray that a new heart may be given tkem, 
that thus they may rejoice at the spectacle that 
they now reprobate, reject, and condemn. 

We see here the very first proofs of sin and 
grace. Sin developed itself in its first stage in 
murder. Grace developed itself in its first mani- 
festation in martyrdom. In the one, you have 
sin making the awful murderer. In the other, 
you have grace ripening the soul for the heroism 
of a doomed martyrdom. The Lord showed, at 
the very commencement of the church and the 
world, what sin can make man, if unmitigated 



236 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and unrestrained ; and how grace can elevate 
and ennoble him who accepts it in his heart. 
This succession is still continued. What is the 
great brand and mark of the Western Apostacy ? 
The Cain mark. It came to pass, that wherever 
Cain trod, the soil was cursed because of him ; 
and that wherever man saw him, he was ready 
to destroy him. His presence was a curse. 
And what is the history of that great Apostacy ? 
Read its history in the fires it has kindled for 
the destruction of its victims. Trace its havoc 
among the martyrs of Jesus to the days of 
the Reformation. Trace its footsteps in the 
blood that was shed ; and if we wish to know 
wha^t its moral results are, where it has do- 
minion, let us turn to Spain, and Italy, and 
Austria, where we have a people above the soil 
not one whit more intellectual than the dead 
dust of their fathers sleeping beneath the soil. 
And yet we are told that this is the system which 
is to be such a blessing to Westminster ; which 
is to achieve the regeneration of the benighted 
Irish there. A recent visitor has said, he could 
trace a nobleman, distinguished for his philan- 
thropy and goodness, in the dark places of West- 
minster. He found him wading through the 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



237 



mud, after speaking to the ragged children some 
bright hopes and useful lessons, to visit some 
plague-smitten alley, But during the whole 
time, he had not met His Eminence, the indi- 
vidual who has promised so much, in a single 
poor dormitory, or ragged school, or distribut- 
ing even by substitute a single tract or Bible 
among them. Be not deceived ; what Roman- 
ism has made Spain, Italy, and Austria, morally 
and intellectually, it would make Westminster. 
The Cain mark is upon it. It has its origin 
then and there. I am not speaking of men ; 
for Christians are in it ; but these are not its 
creation, they are produced in spite of it. 

Two or three more lessons I gather from the 
whole of this interesting subject. 

First, on looking back to the history of these 
two brothers, we find that Cain was the elder 
and that Abel was the younger ; and that when 
Cain was born, Eve said, " I have gotten a man 
from the Lord ;" or, in the original it is, " I 
have gotten the man, Jehovah." In other words, 
she heard, sounding in her heart, that beautiful 
promise, " The seed of the woman shall bruise 
the serpent's head." She thought that the seed 
was to be born of her, instead of 4000 years 



238 THE CHURCH BEFOUE THE FLOOD, 

afterwards. And when Cain was born, in the 
exuberance of her joy that a man-child was 
born, she said, " I have gotten the man pro- 
mised to bruise this wicked serpent's head. I 
have got him." And she called him, therefore, 
Cain, which means, " one that is acquired." 
And when Abel was born, she called him Abel, 
which means " Vanity," that is, " Poor child, he 
belongs to a fallen race ; he is scarcely worth 
the trouble of rearing." She was bitterly mis- 
taken. She lived to see her miscalculations. 
Names often are misapplied. Mothers' hopes 
are often blighted and blasted. The son that 
she thought would be her glory and her defence, 
turns out the murderer. The other that she 
christened Vanity, and thought unworthy of 
notice, turns out to be the martyr. 

Grace is not by nature. Adam was a con- 
verted man, a true Christian, as soon as he re- 
ceived the promise, and believed in Jesus. But 
Adam had in his family two sons, one a 
Christian — Abel ; the other not a Christian — 
Cain. And what does this teach us ? Sin is 
native; but grace is donative. Sin is by ge- 
neration ; grace is by regeneration. The pious 
father has not always the pious son. The wicked 



THE PROTO-MAETYK. 



239 



parent has not always the wicked child. God 
shows sovereignty in these things, and yet he 
has given a promise in connexion and not in- 
consistent with that sovereignty, " Train up a 
child in the way he should go, and when he is 
old he will not depart from it." 

Outward events are not necessarily the evi- 
dences of God's mind towards us. The very 
first Christian was put to a cruel death : and 
the very first murderer escaped alive. What 
does this exhibit \ That God's outward provi- 
dential acts are not always, in themselves, and 
of themselves, the exact evidences of his love 
and affection towards us. God's hand is often 
heavy on a Christian, when God's heart over- 
flows with love to that Christian. We must not, 
therefore, because we lose our property, our 
health, or our relations, if we be believers, say, 
AH these things are against us. But, if we be 
God's children, we must feel, and we are war- 
ranted, and commanded, and it is our privilege 
to feel, that " all things are working together 
for good to them that love God, to them who 
are the called according to his purpose." 

One remark more. It has been argued, that be- 
cause Cain was spared and not capitally punished 



240 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

on this occasion, that, therefore, capital punish- 
ment is forbidden of God. It seems to prove the 
reverse to me. Cain apparently knew that death 
was his desert — such was his consciousness of 
the inner law already felt', if not written, upon 
the human heart, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, 
by man shall his blood be shed," that he said, 
te Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from 
the face of the earth ; and from thy face shall I 
be hid ; and I shall be a fugitive and a vaga- 
bond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, 
that every one that flndeth me shall slay me." 
"Why did Cain say so ? Because the very in- 
stincts of his conscience told him that capital 
punishment was the desert of so capital a crime. 
But God spared him. He let him go away for 
some special purpose, probably for man's sake, 
not his own, to make proof by experiment 
whether the remission of capital punishment 
would be better than inflicting it. God always 
teaches a lesson by a fact, before he states a 
principle. He spared Cain, but what was the 
result ? Two thousand years after, he looked 
down, and saw that the whole earth was filled 
with violence and bloodshed. Then what did 
God say ? He made a new law, not new in its 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



241 



principle, for it was in Cain's heart ; but new 
as a legislative enactment, " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; 55 
that is, the sparing the murderer has not been 
productive of the results that certain warm and 
kind-hearted men still predict ; but of the very 
reverse. And, therefore, capital punishment for 
that crime, and it is the only crime that ought 
to be capitally punished, is an awful, a stern, 
and terrible necessity ; a necessity that has a 
sanction in the Bible, and, I suspect, in the 
hearts and consciences and judgments of the 
most enlightened legislators among mankind. 

Wherever there exist self-righteousness and 
a persecuting spirit, there is nothing like a mis- 
sionary spirit. When God inquired of Cain 
about his brother, his contemptuous reply was, 
" Am I my brother's keeper ? " precisely as 
many people say still, not so wicked as Cain, but 
quite as thoughtless, " A man's salvation is his 
own business, his salvation is his own matter." 
So one says ; but another says with truth, " It is 
your duty, and your privilege." And it is not 
only so in principle ; but it is so in experience. 
If you let the rising generation of the poor grow 

K 



242 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

up without teaching them, from the Scriptures, 
their duties to God, and their duties to their 
souls, the next generation will tell you, that if 
you had been your brother's keeper, you would 
not now have been your brother's victim. The 
best interest of society, as well as the first duty 
of the gospel, is to try to make every man better 
because we have come into contact with him. 
There is not a servant in our house, there is 
not a labourer on our estate, there is not a per- 
son to whom we do not owe the duty, of trying 
to make him better and happier ; so that the 
world may say, as they hear of our death, or 
see our tombstone, Here lies one, who lived 
not to amass money, nor one who selfishly pur- 
sued his way, shouldering off every man who 
would not bring money to him ; but a Chris- 
tian, who has passed through the world — not a 
blank, nor a bane — but a great and an increas- 
ing blessing; who has made the world better 
because he was in it. To have such a post- 
humous renown, is far nobler than to have 
poems written on a tombstone, or beautiful com- 
ments paid for or advertised in the papers of 
the day. Let us show that we have no sym- 



THE PHOTO-MARTYR. 



243 



pathy with the Cain-cry, " I am not my bro- 
ther's keeper/' but with Christ's feeling, who 
laid down his life for his brethren. 

And, lastly, let us ask ourselves, are we, by 
faith, resting upon Abel's Saviour ? Are we 
resting, in our hearts, on that only righteous- 
ness which is unto and upon all ? When Cain — 
and what a fact is this — was overwhelmed with 
envy at the acceptance of his brother's sacrifice, 
God said, " If thou doest well, shalt thou not 
be accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin 
lieth at the door: 5 ' that is, a Obey perfectly, 
and the reward shall be perfect acceptance." 
" And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the 
door," or, as it might otherwise be justly trans- 
lated, a "sin-offering" lies at your door. 

t€ A sin-offering lieth at thy door." In other 
words, ftf If, Cain, you are satisfied that by deeds 
of the law you can be justified, pray make the 
trial, and be justified or not according to the 
issue ; but, if you are satisfied, by painful and 
bitter conviction, that by deeds of the law you 
never can be justified, then rush from Sinai; 
rivet you affections on this only Saviour ; look 
to the great Sin-offering ; make him once for all 

a 2 



244 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

your only trust. It is not for you to go up to 
heaven to bring Christ down ; nor is it for you to 
go down into the depths to bring Christ up. He 
waits for your acceptance. He was pierced for 
you. That Victim speaks in his agony, and he 
speaks from the throne, ' Behold, I stand at 
the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, 
and open the door, I will come in to him, and 
will sup with him, and he with me. 5 99 And if 
mercy and forgiveness, through the bipod of 
Christ, were offered to such a sinner as Cain, 
let the chiefest of saints and the greatest of 
criminals know that there is instant forgiveness 
for their greatest sins, if, with humble trust and 
faith and confidence, they look to and lean on 
Him who is set forth as the propitiation for their 
sins. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 

" All our actions take 
Their lines from one complexion of the heart, 
As landscapes, their variety from light." 

" I care not, so my kernel relish well, 
How slender be the substance of my shell. 
My heart being holy, let my face be wan ; 
I am to God, I only seem to man." 

" The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked : who 
can know it? I the Lord search the heart, / try the reins." — Jer. 
xvii. 9, 10. 

" And God saw that the wickedness of man teas great in the earth, and 
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con- 
tinually. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was 
filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was 
corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." — Gen. 
vi. 5, 11, 12. 

It needs not any additional remarks of mine, 
to enforce the truth I have endeavoured, how- 
ever feebly, to show, that a vast deterioration 
has taken place in all humanity. Its progres- 
sion, during the series of 1500 years that had 
elapsed from the creation of man, was in every 
instance towards worse, in no instance a retro 
gression towards the good that it had lost. 
Every faculty seems to have been injured, every 



246 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

affection to have become depraved, and the 
whole heart of man, in the expressive and al- 
most awful language of the prophet, to have 
become " deceitful above all things, and des- 
perately wicked." 

We are not left to draw this conclusion as an 
inference ; it is the positive assertion of God, 
reiterated in almost every book of the Bible, 
and painfully confirmed by all the facts of the 
history of mankind. He who made the heart 
and knew it, and He who could search it and 
sift it, and see through all its wrappings, and 
detect it under all its multiplied disguises, pro- 
nounces of it the awful verdict in the 6th 
chapter of Genesis, that cc every imagination of 
the thoughts of man's heart was only evil con- 
tinually." " And it repented the Lord, and 
grieved him to the heart, that he had made 
man." What an expression of the awful de- 
pravity of man ! and how bad must he have 
been, when the God who made him once so 
beautiful and fair, is said, in the language of 
earth, to have repented, and to have been 
grieved at the heart, that he had made him. 
But we have only to read modern history, and 
on the Continent from 1789 to 1853, to hear 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 2-i t 

of the frightful excesses into which humanity ^ 
when let loose from the restraint of moral law, 
can plunge and precipitate itself. 

The language that God uses in Genesis is 
most strong — " every imagination/* 5 every move- 
ment of the heart — " every imagination of the 
thoughts/' that isj that delicate tracery of 
thought which man cannot handle, and which 
man's blind eye cannot see, God sees, and pro- 
nounces to be tainted. " And every imagina- 
tion of the thoughts of man's heart/*' not merely 
one, or a few, but " every imagination of the 
thoughts of man's heart " is evil, infected, — the 
fountain is polluted, the root is poisoned : all the 
streams and all the fruit and branches must be 
so. And there is no suspension of this evil ; for 
he says, it is evil, and that " continually." What 
an awful statement is this, that the thoughts that 
we think pure, seen by God, are really impure | 
and that our best doings have so much alloy in 
them, that they alone would disqualify us for 
the kingdom of heaven. Our moral sense, just 
like our physical sense, has become deadened by 
the Fall; but I have no doubt that to the eye of 
an infinitely pure Being, even the purest thought 
that leaps like the lightning through the heart 



248 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

of man, must present itself as infected, or poi- 
soned, in his sight. 66 Every imagination of the 
thoughts of man's heart was only evil continual- 
ly." Let us read the history of the race in after 
ages, and do we find any change ? We come 
down to the days of the prophet Jeremiah, from 
whom I have read the passage that we are now 
considering, and in his days, 595 years before 
the birth of Christ, that is, about 3500 years 
after the creation of man, and about 1500 years 
after God's judgment in the verse in Genesis— 
we find man's heart pronounced to be " deceit- 
ful above all things, and desperately wicked "— 
the disease is too desperate to be cured. The 
words " desperately wicked " mean incurable ; 
and GeseniuSj the celebrated Hebrew lexico- 
grapher, who was a rationalist, defines the word 
to mean "so desperate as to be incurable by 
human power." In other words, the disease 
is too deep to be cured by human skill. There 
may be in man's heart modifying lights, re- 
lieving contrasts ; there may be fragments of his 
primeval beauty still surviving ; there may be 
thoughts that indicate the grand fountain out of 
which they came in Paradise, still lingering ; 
but the great judgment is true of all humanity, 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



249 



that it is far worse than we know it, and our 
disease far more perilous than we ourselves 
admit or believe. It is "desperately wicked; 
who can know it?" Not ourselves, for the 
terra incognita to thousands is in their own 
bosoms, and men who know the secrets of che- 
mistry, geology, astronomy, are ignorant of the 
secret depths and recesses of their own hearts. 
" Who can know it ? " Not demons, not angels, 
not metaphysicians, not anatomists. God says, 
that there is a depth of depravity in it so great, 
that none can know it, and " I the Lord that 
search the hearts, and try the reins of the chil- 
dren of men, alone can know it." 

Did this heart mend itself when we come to 
the days of our blessed Lord ? You are aware, 
it is a favourite theory with certain philosophers, 
that if you leave humanity, it will grow into per- 
fection just as sure as if you leave a seed, it will 
grow into a tree, and blossom, and bear fruit ; 
and that man is in a course of endless pro- 
gression toward perfection. Is it fact, that now 
humanity is improved in its moral features? 
Separate from it the influence of the Christian 
religion, and is it not true that nations ignorant 
of Christianity are at this moment just what we 



250 THE CHUKCII BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

are ? Alas, we can find among the ancient 
heathen, instances of devotedness, and self-sacri- 
fice, and virtue, such as you will not find in 
modern nations that are strangers to the restora- 
tive power of the gospel of Christ Jesus. Let us 
look, then, if there was any progress up to the 
days of our Lord, that is, 2500 years after the 
time when this judgment in Genesis was pro- 
nounced. What does the Lord say ? He was 
" the truth ; " his judgment must, therefore, be 
true. He was love itself, and could, therefore, 
have no pleasure in darkening the portrait that 
was already dark enough. He says, " Out of the 
heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, 
fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wick- 
edness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blas- 
phemy, pride, foolishness." Such are the chil- 
dren of the heart — such the offspring of your 
heart, and mine also, as they exist in their native, 
unchanged, and unrenovated character. He 
who heard its lowest beatings, said so. He 
whose eye pierced its most subtle and exquisite 
structure, said so. He who had no pleasure in 
the death of the sinner, but rather that he should 
turn from his wickedness and live, said so. And 
as if in his own generation he should prove it to 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



251 



be such, he, the perfection of all excellence, the 
brightness of the glory of God, came to earth, 
and if one spark of love, one element of purity, 
existed in nature, all must have hailed so illus- 
trious, so beneficent a messenger, come from 
the shies to restore us ; but instead of doing so, 
the awful proof of our awful wickedness is in 
these words, " He came to his own, and his own 
knew him not." He came offering his life a 
ransom for sinners, and they shouted, as the re- 
presentatives of all humanity, " Away with him, 
away with him ! Crucify him, crucify him ! 
It is not fit that such a one should live." 

If, again, we come down to the days of the 
apostle Paul, we find no progress still. He 
gives a picture of the human heart, as it existed 
in his days, in the first chapter of the Epistle 
to the Romans, so awful, that we at once 
feel that the judgments of God in the 6th 
chapter of Genesis, and in the 17th chapter 
of Jeremiah, were not in the least over-charged. 
I am speaking, not of the heart of the Jew, 
or the heart of the Roman, but of that of 
man. The portraits of Christianity are not 
topical, local, accidental, they are graphic pic- 
tures of all mankind — the just and accurate 



252 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

cartoons of what humanity was, is, and ever 
must be, till it be renovated by the holy Spirit 
of God. 

Of course, many will say, We cannot believe 
that the natural man is what you say, since we 
see so much in him that is the reverse. I admit 
that one man is constitutionally honourable, 
another again is constitutionally humble, and 
honest, and gentle. There are also repressive 
influences which keep down the outbreak of the 
heart's corruptions. It must be remembered 
that this is not a description of what is taking 
place without, but of what is lurking within. 
This is not a statement of a volcano exploding ; 
but it is that of a volcano that has its retreat in 
the heart, and is there ever liable to explode, 
and demonstrate the fearful elements of havoc 
that are latent within. The description, there- 
fore, is not that every human being is a drunk- 
ard, an adulterer, a blasphemer, covetous, wick- 
ed, proud, foolish, a murderer, a thief, and so 
on ; it does not say, every individual is so ; but 
it says, in every individual's heart these elements 
exist, in some in the bud, in some slightly de- 
veloped, in some powerful, in some irresistible, 
and in some exploding in awful manifestations. 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



253 



It is therefore the picture of what the human 
heart is, and what it may develope, if circum- 
stances permit it. We do not know how much 
we owe to never having come within reach of 
some specific temptation ; for how much of our 
excellence we are indebted to our never be- 
ing placed in circumstances where the match 
that would ignite might have been applied. 
We do not know, in other words, what we owe 
to the providence of God that placed us here, 
and not there. And very often, when you re- 
buke with just severity the offender, temper your 
rebuke with the inner recollection — I might 
have been worse, if I had been in his place ; and 
at all events, give for your safety and preserva- 
tion all the glory, either to the providence of 
God that kept you as you are, or to the grace of 
God that made you triumph, where otherwise 
you would have foully fallen. 

Having seen this picture of what humanity 
has become, let us notice the following lessons. 
First, long life is no preservative against the 
degeneracy of man. He lived in the days of 
Noah twelve or thirteen times longer than he 
lives now ; but did he improve ? Did experi- 
ence teach him more excellent lessons ? Did 



254 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



his contact with evil prove to him experiment- 
ally its bitterness ? Did he grow better as he 
grew older ? The language of Scripture in- 
dicates the very reverse — in fact, the longer he 
lived the more corrupt he became, and the in- 
ference naturally forced upon us is, that it is 
well that man's life is shortened, or the world 
would become far worse than it ever was before. 
The shortening of our life is partly in judgment, 
but it is mainly in mercy — in mercy to the good, 
that they may be sooner transplanted to a higher 
and better world — in mercy to the bad, that 
they may not have space and scope to develope 
all the inherent depravity of their nature. Thus 
therefore, what seems to us a judgment because 
of our sins, is lightened by the thought - that 
it is also mercy on the part of God. To wish, 
therefore, that we lived a couple of hundred 
years, instead of seventy, is scarcely Christian. 
There is no evidence that we should get better 
by it. We shall find old men just as depraved 
in one way, as young men are in another, if both 
be strangers to the grace of God. 

Tradition is no sure preventive of corruption. 
Here was a grand field for the experiment, 
whether tradition, or the oral transmission of 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



255 



truth; would preserve the human race from apos- 
tasy. Between Adam and Noah there was only 
one single link. Methuselah could tell Noah 
what he learned from Adam, and the lessons that 
Adam taught ; and Noah could thus treasure 
them up for his generation. If ever oral trans- 
mission of truth was placed in circumstances 
favourable to its perfect efficiency^ it was in the 
antediluvian world. But what was the result ? 
It failed to prevent utter apostasy, or at all to 
arrest the corruption of all mankind ; it failed 
to perpetuate that truth which Adam had learned 
in Paradise, but which the antediluvians had for- 
gotten soon after they learned it from Adam's 
lips. And if oral transmission of truth failed in 
such favourable circumstances, how inevitable 
is the conclusion that it cannot have succeeded 
in the mediaeval ages of Europe, and that the 
traditions of the Western Apostasy, instead of 
being the truths of God, are the perverted, and 
corrupted, and distorted traditions of once great 
truths, now travestied into utter and anile fables. 

We learn in the next place, that God's great 
forbearance did not repress wickedness. How 
long did God bear with man after man had 
fallen into this apostate, demoralized, and lost 



256 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

condition ! One would have thought that such 
forbearance so vividly illustrated in the case of 
spared Cain, would have made the rest of man- 
kind say, So good a God surely merits a different 
treatment at our hands. But they denied his 
existence ; they defied his judgments ; they 
doubted the inspection of his providence, and 
lived as if there were no God, and sinned as if 
there could be no judgment. The long forbear- 
ance of God had, therefore, no arresting influ- 
ence on the increased corruption of man. 

Again, the visible example of the effects of 
sin had no effect upon them. In other words, 
punishment did not deter them. Cain walked 
the world, blasted within and branded without, 
a vagabond and a fugitive, the punished of 
heaven and the shunned of earth, proving by 
his dumb but expressive spectacle, that it is a 
bitter and a wicked thing to depart from God. 
They heard, thundering behind Cain, a law that 
said, " Thou shalt not and they heard, speak- 
ing from the earth, the blood of Abel that still 
cried for vengeance ; they saw an earth blasted, 
flowers blighted, and Paradise, like a bright 
vision, departing in the distant horizon — all 
reminding what sin was, and what sin had done, 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



257 



and what terrible punitive retributions awaited 
it : and yet, with a high hand they sinned against 
God, and defied the judgments, and mocked at 
the penalties of the transgression of his holy 
law. More than this, they had seen one in- 
stance at least of a miracle adequate to teach 
them that the path to heaven was the path of 
pietv and virtue. They had seen Enoch walk 
with God. and had beheld him ascend in a 
bright cloud to the presence of God — a testi- 
mony visible to the eye, and audible to the ear, 
that God loved and regarded the righteous, and 
that his ear was ever open to their cry. But 
this did not arrest their course : there is no proof 
that this miracle exercised a regenerating or 
transforming influence upon antediluvian society. 
And so will it ever be — <f If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded 
though one rose from the dead." Xo demon- 
stration of power can ever change the human 
heart ; what therefore we need in the present 
day is, not that God would bow the heavens, and 
work visible miracles before us, but that He 
would be pleased to bring on another Pentecost, 
and pour his Holy Spirit into our dark and cor- 
rupt hearts. And it always seems to me that the 
s 



258 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

demand for miracles to convince us that Chris- 
tianity is true, is an admission of scepticism and 
unbelief. The miracles wrought by our Lord 
and his apostles sufficiently affirm the truth of 
Christianity. They convince me. I do not wish 
to linger longer at the porch — I am satisfied that 
the temple is built by God, and that its inner 
chambers are filled with the glory of God ; and, 
persuaded of this, I can no longer remain with- 
out for proofs of it, I must go within and hear 
the heavenly oracle, and receive the blessings 
that are for me, and feed upon the living bread 
that God has provided for them that love him. 
It is certain, that no miracle, however vast the 
power of which it is the exponent, will ever 
serve to make a man a Christian. Thousands 
will appear at the judgment- day, and say, a Lord, 
have we not in thy name done many wonderful 
works ? And he will say unto them, I never 
knew you : depart from me, ye that work in- 
iquity." This shows us, that wonderful works 
may be done in Christ's name by men who are 
not Christ's people. And we read in the Scrip- 
tures, that there shall come a day when such 
signs and wonders shall be done, that, if it were 
possible, they shall deceive the very elect. And 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 259 

we are told, that the " man of sin 99 will come 
with " lying wonders 99 — not cc false wonders/' 
but Tepaai tyeiSdvs, (e wonders to confirm a lie 99 — 
wonders wrought to prove that a lie is God's 
truth. But, if any such were to be performed 
before us, if one were to come, and raise a dead 
man from the grave, and say, " I have done so, 
and I show you this proof of power to convince 
you that the Bible is not the word of God, and 
that you are to hear tradition, and not the 
Bible first of all, I should recollect that there 
shall come wonders in the last days, such as, if 
it were possible, shall deceive the very elect ; I 
should then recollect that Satan himself is trans- 
formed into an angel of light ; and lastly, I 
should not hesitate to say, (e Get thee behind 
me, Satan. Thou savourest not of the things 
that be of God. 55 This book ends all contro- 
versy about what is truth, and therefore all the 
miracles that power can exhibit upon earth will 
not in the least degree shake my confidence in 
the contents of this book : for if God wrought 
miracles to prove that it is true, he never can 
work other miracles to prove that it is false ; and 
therefore all contrary miracles must come from 
s 2 



260 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

beneath, they never can come from the source 
of light and truth. 

In the next place, we find in the antediluvian 
world that the very preaching of the gospel 
failed to arrest the prevailing degeneracy. Noah 
was a preacher of righteousness ; and in 1 Pet. 
iii. 18, a passage which has been much mis- 
understood, we read : " For Christ also hath 
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, 
that he might bring us to God, being put to 
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit : 
by which " Spirit— the 66 Spirit that shall not 
always strive with man," (Gen. vi. 3,) — " also 
he went and preached unto the spirits in prison ; 
which sometime were disobedient, when once 
the long-suffering of God waited in the days of 
Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein 
few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. 
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth 
also now save us, (not the putting away of the 
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good con- 
science toward God,) by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ." Then, we gather from this that 
the gospel was preached by Noah, as the am- 
bassador of Christ to the antediluvians ; and 



THE HEART AS IT IS 



261 



that, hearing that gospel thus preached, they 
were yet not moved, or melted, or transformed 
by its sanctifying and its efficient power. And 
the passage says also, that Christ " went and 
preached unto the spirits in prison." Who 
were they . ? Not the spirits who were in prison 
in the days of the Flood, as if Christ went down 
into some fabulous region, and preached to men 
after they were dead ; it means, that Jesus went 
and preached to those who lived in the days of 
Noah, but who in the days of Peter were, and 
in our days are, in prison — that prison being 
an everlasting exile from the presence and the 
glory of God. In other words, it tells us that 
Jesus Christ preached by Xoah to men, who so 
little profited by it, that they are now shut up in 
the prison of condemnation till the last day. It 
is also added, " The like figure whereunto bap- 
tism doth now save us," Baptism has, then, 
some connexion with the Flood. Now, how did 
the Flood save men ? It saved Noah and his 
family, but it did not regenerate them ; it was 
no proof that they had been savingly accepted 
of God. In spite of that baptism Ham plunged 
into grievous sin against God. Xow baptism in 
the case of believers, is a seal of recognition of 



262 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

them as believers ; and, wherever it is adminis- 
tered, whether to young or old, it no more pre- 
serves the subject of it from the infection of sin in 
after life, than the Flood preserved the earth from 
that corruption which spreads over it in the pre- 
sent day* Thus the gospel was preached to the 
antediluvians, without any corresponding result 
equal to the preciousness of those truths which 
sounded in their ears. Is it not the same still? 
Men hear the gospel, and they believe it, but 
they feel nothing of it — the preacher's voice is as 
the sound of one who playeth well upon an in- 
strument; and thousands who hear it are now 
what they would have been if Christianity had 
never been preached to them at all. The ante- 
diluvians are not singular in their rejection of 
the gospel ; but wherever that gospel is preach- 
ed still, it is the cc savour of life 99 unto some, 
and the " savour of death 99 unto others. 

We learn, in the next place, that the judg- 
ment which Noah proclaimed did not act with 
any effect upon the vast multitude. He told 
them that the windows of heaven would be 
opened, and the fountains of the deep broken 
up. And to precept he added example ; for the 
antediluvians saw him, for upwards of one hun- 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



263 



drecl years, laying the timbers of his ark. I 
have no doubt that some most heartily laughed 
at him, and if they had newspapers in that day, 
that they caricatured him for the merriment and 
the amusement of all. I have no doubt scien- 
tific men showed that it was absolutely impos- 
sible that there could be a flood ; they probably 
asked, where is the force that can resist the 
law of gravitation, and make the waters of the 
sea rise against that law, and cover the loftiest 
mountains and pinnacles of the world ? And 
thus the whole world settled itself down into the 
quiet conviction that the earth would last their 
day at least, and that, if they listened to that 
fanatical old man, they would only be disturbed 
in their present enjoyments. Now all their con- 
clusions were very probable and very exact, as 
far as the data upon which they proceeded were 
concerned ; but they left out one element — they 
ignored the existence and the word of God, 
that governs all things — the element of Omnipo- 
tent power was excluded — the element of God's 
threat to do so was disregarded, and therefore all 
their conclusions fell to the ground. But, if 
the antediluvians acted thus, let us take care lest 
we be faithfully copying their example; for we 



284 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 
# 

are actually told in the word of God itself, in 
the Second Epistle of Peter, in the third chap- 
ter, " Beloved, be mindful of the words which 
were spoken before by the holy prophets, and 
of the commandment of us the apostles of the 
Lord and Saviour : knowing this first, that there 
shall come in the last days scoffers, walking 
after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the 
promise of his coming ? for since the fathers 
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from 
the beginning of the creation." Well, then the 
apostle appeals to the era of the Flood, and he 
says, " For this they are willingly ignorant of, 
that by the word of God the heavens were of 
old, and the earth standing out of the water and 
in the water ; whereby the world that then was, 
being overflowed with water, perished ; but the 
heavens and the earth, which are now, by the 
same word are kept stored with fire, reserved 
against the day of judgment, and perdition of 
ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of 
this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as 
a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
day. The Lord is not slack concerning his pro- 
mise, as some men count slackness ; but is long- 
suffering to us-ward," just as he was in the days 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



265 



of Xoah, " not willing that any should perish, 
but that all should come to repentance,". just as 
he was then. " But/' says Peter, " the day of 
the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the 
which the heavens shall pass away with a great 
noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat, the earth also and the works that are 
therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that 
all these things shall be dissolved, what manner 
of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversa- 
tion and godliness ? " All this shows that poor 
humanity, unimproved by the past, will repeat 
itself in the future ; that the human heart in the 
nineteenth century, will just be the counterpart 
of the human heart in the two thousandth year 
of the world's creation. And do not men 2:0 on 
saying, To-day is, and therefore to-morrow will 
be ? They say 1852 is the guarantee and the 
pledge of 1853 ; but it is not so. Because you 
have seen the end of 1852, you have not the 
least guarantee that you will see that of 1853 ; 
because this year has rolled to its close, there 
is no evidence that God will continue to us the 
next. He lives, and is the living God ; not the 
God cf the past that was, but of the present 
that is ; and he may step in and terminate the 



286 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

series at any moment and at any hour, like a 
thief in the night, as he pleases. And yet, 
stranger still to say, though this is so, men 
will be engaged upon the eve of the world's 
destruction by fire, just as they were on the eve 
of its dissolution by the Flood. Some one has 
made the remark, " History is an old almanack. 5 ' 
The remark was made contemptuously, but there 
is great truth in it. The dates are changed, 
and that is all. Hence it is, that as it was in the 
days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the 
Son of man be. The date is changed, but there 
is the same human nature, the same facts, the 
same phenomena— human nature, left to itself, 
having made no progression, but repeating itself 
till the cycles of to-day are only the repetition of 
the cycles of yesterday, and both teach us all that, 
without influence from on high, human nature 
must degenerate, not improve, or attain to that 
great standard to which it ^as originally con- 
formed. 

Such are some of the features of church and 
state prior to the Deluge, and such too are some 
of the proofs that these portraits are too faithfully 
copied by us, who live in the last days of the 
world. How humbling it is to us all, that we 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



267 



are the descendants of such, a race, the inheritors 
of so perverted a humanity ! How forcibly are 
we taught by all we have been considering^ 
that the domestic is the first spring of powerful 
influence, either to corrupt, or to improve man- 
kind ! It is in the individual home that in- 
fluences begin, which go forth, like ministering 
angels, to bless and beautify mankind, or, like 
fiends and demons, to curse and to destroy the 
world. It was by intermarriages that God for- 
bade, that the great elements of corruption were 
so rapidly generated. It is still the individual 
home that makes the great home, called the 
country. And all reforms, ecclesiastical, social, 
political, however good in themselves, are not 
for one moment to be compared with that reform 
which begins in the individual heart, fills with 
its transforming beauty the individual home, and 
spreads from it, as from a centre of sanctifying 
and holy influence, till the whole country, or 
the large home, becomes the reflection of the 
little one ; and nations are blessed, and mankind 
are benefited, by what individuals are in their 
personal and domestic relationships. 

One great secret of the inveterate corruption 
of the heart is its deceitfulness. It is said by the 



268 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

prophet, that it 66 is deceitful above all things, 
and desperately wicked." Now, to be aware of 
the heart's deceitfulness is as important as to be 
aware of the heart's depravity. It is its deceit- 
fulness that is the vehicle, as it is always the 
proof, of its great depravity. And this deceit- 
fulness is seen by its deceiving the judgment in 
the estimate of the heart. There are few men 
who do not think their hearts far better than 
they are. How often we hear men say, "Well, 
he did such a thing, but in the main he has a 
good heart ; as if there could be a good heart 
with bad fruit. Imagination too, like a hireling 
poet, sings the praises of the heart ; and the 
judgment, ever listening to a poet so sweet and 
congenial to itself, also joins in the praises, and 
pronounces, We are, after all, not so bad as 
Scripture describes us ; nor is our condition so 
dangerous as the preacher tells us. 

How often, too, does the heart deceive us in 
our attachments in the world ! You will say to 
yourselves, I have no undue attachment for 
money, I do not think I am covetous ; and that 
is your real feeling. But let your money be 
swept away, let your property be destroyed, let 
some great loss overtake you, and fall upon 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



269 



your possessions like a thunderbolt, scattering 
and consuming all ; and how is it then ? You 
now feel that your heart deceived you when it 
told you that your attachment to this world's 
wealth was slight ; and by the murmuring and 
the repining of that heart at its losses, you learn 
how deep, although how undetected, was your 
attachment to this world's good things. 

The heart deceives us as to our power of re- 
sisting evil. You hear the preacher say some- 
thing against theatres, and you say, I have not 
the least disposition to be affected by this sin, 
or by that vice ; and therefore, you add, 1 will 
go ; I am not afraid to go ; I am quite conscious 
that I shall not catch any harm. You see, first, 
what you do not exactly like. You think this is 
not so pure as you could have wished ; but still, 
you suppose, it is the custom of the place ; and 
ultimately you come to look upon things with 
perfect complacency, from which you would 
have revolted before, and to admire sparkling 
remarks with double meanings, which once you 
would have instinctively shrunk from. And 
thus, the heart deceives you to enter, because 
you believe it is impregnable ; afterwards it tells 
you how deceitful, as well as how depraved, it 



270 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

is. There is, we are told, above the thundering 
cataract Niagara, a broad and a placid stream, so 
beautiful and smooth, that a boat plied by oars 
or sails moves upon it as upon a calm lake. 
You may go lower down, and an oar will still 
manage the boat ; but a little further down there 
is a point where an oar will fail, and where the 
voyager and his vessel will be carried irresist- 
ibly onwards, and dashed over the impetuous 
cataract, and both will disappear together. In 
other words, in all moral evil there is a point 
where you should resist, and where you may re- 
sist successfully ; but go beyond that point — play 
with it — dare, brave it — venture still, and you 
will be borne into its vortex, and retreat will be 
impossible. Or, to suppose another case, you go 
into a gambling-room. To a cautious adviser your 
answer is, I have no taste for gambling ; I do not 
well know how to play cards ; I have not the 
least temptation to speculate — it is not my taste. 
You see some one whom you call your friend, 
who is busily engaged in it. You watch him 
play, and you find him successful. You cannot 
see any great harm in shuffling a card, or in 
throwing a die ; and though you have no liking 
for gambling, and not the least fear that you 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 



271 



would risk anything in it^ you think it would 
be a very great amusement ; and therefore, to 
wile away a few minutes, you sit down at the 
table ; and ere the night is over you rise a 
desperate or a ruined gambler. Such is the 
deceitfulness of the human heart ; it leads you 
to believe, first, that it is utterly incapable of 
this and of that impression : you give way, and 
you find that most unintentionally you have 
yielded to that which plunges you in irrepar- 
able and deplorable ruin. Sometimes, when 
you are told of all these things, you are very 
apt to say, as one said of old (2 Kings viii. 12, 
13) : " Hazael," speaking to Elisha, " said, Why 
weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because 
I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the chil- 
dren of Israel : their strongholds wilt thou set 
on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with 
the sword, and wilt dash their children, and 
wilt rip up their women with child. And 
Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog that 
he should do this great thing? And Elisha 
answered, The Lord hath showed me that thou 
shalt be king over Syria. 55 And he did all 
that Elisha said ; and yet his first instinctive 
feelings, suggested by the very deceitfulness of 



272 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

his heart, were, that such things are utterly im- 
possible. 

I do not dwell longer upon this. Let us 
pray that all of us may possess the great pre- 
ventive of, and the only antagonist to, the tend- 
encies of a depraved heart, namely, the sure 
regeneration of the Holy Spirit of God. God 
alone knows the heart, God alone can change 
the heart. It is still true, " Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
A Christian is not the old vine from which one 
branch has been lopped off, a vessel of which 
one hole has been stopped up, leaving the ele- 
ment within to work itself out in some other 
channel ; a Christian is one whose whole heart 
has been changed. In other words, regeneration 
is not a reformation of man, it is a revolution of 
man; it is an entire transformation of all the 
springs, and all the thoughts and fountains, of 
his being : so that all things have become new, 
and all old things are passed away. 

Make sure of this change : it is reality, not 
shadow. The subjects of this change will not 
venture on forbidden ground ; they will not 
tamper with the evil that is seductive and peril- 
ous ; they will learn to suspect far distant and 



THE HEART AS IT IS. 273 

even possible evil ; and they will ever pray, 
what will be their safety in proportion as they 
realize it, " Lead us not into temptation, but 
deliver us from evil." 



x 



CHAPTER X. 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 

" The heir of heaven, henceforth I dread not death ; 
In Christ I live, in Christ I draw the breath 
Of the true life. Let sea, and earth, and sky, 
"Wage war against me : on my brow I show 
The mighty Master's seal. In vain they try 
To end my life, who can but end its woe." 

" The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not 
the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good con- 
science toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." — 1 Pet. iii. 21. 

It is asserted by Peter, that Jesus preached 
to the antediluvians previous to the Flood the 
great truths of the gospel, which he afterwards 
came to seal and establish by his death. He 
did so, not immediately, but mediately by 
the instrumentality of Noah, "a preacher of 
righteousness," who preached to and reasoned 
with those who were threatened destruction by 
the approaching flood, and pressed them to 
enter into the ark, and have instant safety. It 
is said, Jesus did so by his Spirit, — " By which 
Holy Spirit he went and preached." Thus we 
have Christ the Preacher, the Spirit the In- 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



275 



spirer of the message, and Noah the organ of its 
utterance, or the minister. 

" He preached," it is said, ts to the spirits in 
prison." I need not state that some have argued 
that Christ descended into a region known by the 
unscriptural name of purgatory, and that there 
he preached to the inmates their approaching 
deliverance. But this is confounding things that 
differ ; for here it is stated that Christ merely 
went and preached to the antediluvians who 
were on earth in the days of Noah, and while 
they were on earth, who were in prison in the 
days of Peter. The historian, Peter, says they 
were in prison in his days ; but the preacher, 
Noah, preached to them whilst they were yet 
existing; in the flesh in his. These souls 
were in the flesh when Christ preached to them ; 
these souls were in prison when Peter wrote 
concerning this fact. And any one who reads 
history must notice that two things are often 
predicated of the same party — the one true 
when the party spoken of was upon earth ; the 
other true when the historian who records the 
fact wrote or recorded that fact. Now to found 
the doctrine of purgatory upon this is to mis- 
interpret the passage altogether. Besides, there 
t 2 



276 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

is a conclusive reply to any such inference in 
this, that purgatory, as defined by the Council 
of Trent, is for the souls of believers, who there, 
it alleges, are purified, and out of which they 
emerge to heaven. But those who perished by 
the Flood were unbelievers, and therefore, by 
the very definition of the doctrine, they never 
could have entered purgatory, and from thence 
emerged to heaven. Whatever doctrine, there- 
fore, this text may support, it is not the doctrine 
of purgatory as held by the Romish Church. All 
that is here stated is, that there is a " prison," or 
a place of eternal woe, which was open in the 
days of Noah, was not closed in the days of Peter, 
and there is no record that it is closed now. 

But I have selected this passage as a sequel 
to my explanations of the history of Noah, in 
order to illustrate the meaning of that misappre- 
hended, mistaken, and perverted thing, or rather 
sacrament or rite, which we call baptism. For 
some of the distinctions that I have drawn — 
distinctions, I think, of paramount importance, 
I am deeply indebted to a very able letter ad- 
dressed by that truly great man, the Rev. Dr. 
Mc Neile, to the Bishop of Exeter. Some of his 
distinctions I cordially adopt with this acknow- 



BAPTISM DOTH SATE. 



277 



ledgment, as singularly precious and important 
at the present moment. It does seem, on look- 
ing at this passage, that the great errors that 
have been grafted upon baptism have arisen 
from confounding things that utterly and totally 
differ. There is sprinkling with water, or, if 
vou like, immersion in water — and there is a bap- 
tism which is regeneration in the absolute and 
true sense of that word ; but to take the one and 
put it for the other, is to misapply and pervert 
the plainest passages of the word of God. The 
real baptism, strictly so called, is the inner one 
which the Holy Spirit gives, while the outer 
rite which the minister bestows, is merely the 
recognition of that previous inner baptism which 
the Holy Spirit of God has given. 

But in order to show what Scripture says 
upon this subject, let me refer to the different 
senses in which the word baptism is used, and 
let the reader mark and recollect the texts, in 
order that he may be furnished upon a matter 
which I hope, by God's blessing, I may make 
clear, and upon which I hope fewer every 
day hold the painful heresies and errors of Ox- 
ford. Baptism signifies, in the first instance, 
suffering. The first proof I quote for this is in 



278 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD, 

Luke xii. 49, 50. ee I am come/ 5 says the Sa- 
viour, " to send fire on the earth ; and what will 
I, if it be already kindled ? But I have a bap- 
tism to be baptized with ; and how am I strait- 
ened till it be accomplished ! " Now here is the 
word (C baptism " used in no sense in connexion 
with water at all. My conviction is that the 
word bapto, or rather baptizo, or, as we call it 
in Scotland, baptidzo, in its strict sense, has 
nothing to do with water-dipping, or immersion, 
but is used in relation to consecration, or devo- 
tion, or being set apart. Our Saviour says, " I 
have a baptism to be baptized with," — and this 
was after his baptism by John, — and he was 
straitened till that baptism should be passed 
through, thus clearly alluding to the sufferings 
which he was very soon to undergo. We find 
the same use of the word in Mark x. 38. " But 
Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask : 
can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?" — 
meaning plainly his cup of suffering — " and be 
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized 
with? " This is not water baptism in any sense 
or shape, but simply agony, suffering, pain. 
Now, I answer, taking baptism in this its first 
Scriptural sense, such baptism doth not save, 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



279 



such, baptism is not salvation, nor regeneration, 
nor conversion, nor renewal of heart. For will 
it be alleged, that any sufferings of any one 
who could thus be baptized are expiatory ? 
What Jesus says is, " I have a baptism that ye 
cannot be baptized with ; " that is, " I am to 
undergo sufferings that are in their nature ex- 
piatory or atoning, and no sufferings of yours 
can in any sense whatever be expiatory or aton- 
ing ; and therefore you cannot be baptized with 
my baptism." And we ourselves are persuaded, 
that no tears which a penitent can shed can 
wash away the least taint of the transgression of 
a thought, — no blood that a martyr can pour 
forth can cleanse away his sins. Those who 
emerged from great tribulation, and had their 
robes made white and sparkling like the driven 
snow, had washed their robes, not in their own 
blood, but in the blood of the Lamb. And here 
the inference is, that no sufferings which w T e can 
undergo can expiate our sins, or make atone- 
ment for our souls, for if they can really do so, 
then they have such an efficacy as ought to render 
unnecessary the atonement and sacrifice of Jesus. 

The next sense in which baptism is used in 
Scripture is, endowment with the miraculous 



280 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

powers of the Holy Ghost. Baptism means in- 
vestiture or endowment with the miraculous 
powers of the Holy Ghost. I turn first to Mat- 
thew iii. 11, where John is recorded to have said, 
66 1 indeed baptize you with water " — you ob- 
serve, baptism is not necessarily connected with 
water — so much so, that John adds u with water," 
in order to distinguish — " T indeed baptize you 
with water unto repentance : but he that cometh 
after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not 
worthy to bear : he shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost, and with fire." Therefore, the 
word " baptism " has nothing to do essentially 
and inseparably with water. You may be bap- 
tized with water, or you may be baptized with 
fire, or you may be baptized with sufferings. It 
means any of them, or all of them together, 
not necessarily any one particularly. So again, 
in Acts i. 5. 66 For John truly baptized with 
water " — that is one baptism ; " but ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days 
hence " — that is, endowed with the miraculous 
powers of the Holy Spirit, which is another 
baptism. So again, the word is used in the same 
sense in Acts xi. 15. " As I began to speak, 
the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the 



BAPTISM DOTH SATE. 



281 



beginning. Then remembered I the word of 
the Lord, how that he said, John indeed bap- 
tized with water " — that was his function ; " but 
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost; 55 
that is, endowed, as the sequel proves, with 
miraculous powers. Now, having ascertained 
this second sense of baptisma, or of the verb 
baptizo, I add, that this baptism is not neces- 
sarily regeneration — this baptism confessedly 
does not save. You say, Why ? I answer, Be- 
cause our blessed Lord says, " Many will say 
to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not pro- 
phesied in thy name ? and in thy name have cast 
out devils ? and in thy name done many won- 
derful works ? 55 (that is, been baptized in this 
sense with the miraculous powers of the Holy 
Ghost). " And then will I profess unto them, 
I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that 
work iniquity. 55 Judas was thus baptized if the 
other apostles were, and did miracles like the 
other apostles, and yet the record is distinct, 
that Judas went " to his own place. 55 It is plain 
that there is a baptism that is not regeneration, 
namely, the baptism which is the endowment 
with the miraculous powers of the Holy Ghost, 
with which men have been invested, endowed, or 



282 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

baptized, but who have proceeded to the prison 
of lost spirits, unforgiven and unrenewed, stran- 
gers to regeneration. 

The third sense of baptism is, an outward rite 
with water, or what John calls baptizing u with 
water." Some evidences of this I also give, 
though, of course, such are not so necessary ; 
but as I have quoted the others, I give these 
too. In Acts viii. 26, we have the follow- 
ing : " And the angel of the Lord spake unto 
Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south 
unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem 
unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose 
and went : and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an 
eunuch of great authority under Candace queen 
of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all 
her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for 
to worship, was returning, and sitting in his 
chariot, read Esaias the prophet. Then the 
Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thy- 
self to this chariot. And Philip ran thither 
to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, 
and said, Understandest thou what thou read- 
est ? And he said, How can I, except some 
man should guide me ? And he desired Philip 
that he would come up and sit with him. The 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



283 



place of the Scripture which he read was this, 
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter ; and 
like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened 
he not his mouth : in his humiliation his judg- 
ment was taken "away : and who shall declare 
his generation ? for his life is taken from the 
earth. And the eunuch answered Philip, and 
said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet 
this ? of himself, or of some other man ? Then 
Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same 
Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And 
as they went on their way," after this evidence 
of conversion, " they came unto a certain water : 
and the eunuch said, See, here is water ; what 
doth hinder me to be baptized?" With what ? 
Water. " And Philip said, If thou believest 
with all thine heart, thou mayest." That is 
the pre-requisite of baptism in the case of an 
adult, for of this only I am now speaking. 
" And he answered and said, I believe that 
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he com- 
manded the chariot to stand still : and they went 
down both into the water, both Philip and the 
eunuch ; and he baptized him." I may just 
note, as I pass, that there is no proof here that 
the eunuch was immersed. I am not discuss- 



284 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

ing whether immersion or sprinkling is right — 
in my opinion either is sufficient ; but this 
passage does not prove immersion more than 
sprinkling ; for it is said, that not only did the 
eunuch go into the water, but that Philip went 
also; they both went into the water; but the 
most severe advocate of immersion, at least so I 
believe, for I have never seen an immersion, 
will not hold that both the minister and the 
recipient ought to be immersed in the water at 
the same time. Thus, we have an evidence of 
the strict sense of baptism with water. So again, 
in Acts x. 44 : " While Peter yet spake these 
words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which 
heard the word. And they of the circumcision 
which believed were astonished, as many as 
came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles 
also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost," 
that is, evidently, the miraculous gift. " For 
they heard them speak with tongues, and mag- 
nify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man 
forbid water, that these should not be baptized, 
which have received the Holy Ghost as well as 
we ? And he commanded them to be baptized 55 
— with water that is — u in the name of the Lord. 
Then prayed they him to tarry certain days." 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



285 



Xow those two passages are illustrations of the 
enforcement and fulfilment of our blessed Lord's 
command; " Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Fa- 
ther, and of the Son. and of the Holy Ghost." 
In quoting, however, that commission, I may 
just notice, that there are two distinct words 
used in the original, each of which our translators 
unfortunately render " teach." Our transla- 
tion is, i: Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I 
have commanded you." But those two words 
rendered " teach " and " teaching," are per- 
fectly distinct in the original tongue. I will 
give you the exact and faithful translation. 
" Go and discipleize all nations, baptizing," or, 
if you like, " by baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost:" and then, subsequently to their baptism, 
ft teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
I have commanded you ; and, lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." We have 
therefore, baptism used in the sense in which it 
is commonly accepted, or baptism with water. 



286 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Now we assert, this baptism doth not neces- 
sarily save — this baptism is not necessarily re- 
generation ; for, as I shall show in a subsequent 
part of my statement, and one instance is con- 
clusive, there have been cases where men have 
been baptized in this third sense, and yet have 
not been regenerate,— where they have been 
sprinkled with water, or dipped in water, which 
you please, and yet they have remained just as 
they were, " dead in trespasses and sins." 

Now let us refer to the fourth sense in which 
the word "baptism" is used — the baptism that 
really is regeneration, and in which sense you may 
use and apply the word ce baptism," provided 
the party, in whose hearing you apply it, clearly 
understands your meaning. I refer to Romans 
vi. 3, " Know ye not, that so many of us as were 
baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his 
death ? " But what is the consequence of that 
baptism — the invariable consequence ? ce There- 
fore we," the subjects of it, " are buried with 
him by baptism into death : that like as Christ 
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we," the subjects of it, u also 
should walk in newness of life. For if we," the 
subjects of it, " have been planted together in the 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



287 



likeness of his death, we/ 5 the same subjects of 
this baptism, " shall be also in the likeness of his 
resurrection : knowing this, that our old man is 
crucified with him, that the body of sin might 
be destroyed, that henceforth we should not 
serve sin. For he that is dead " — buried with 
him by this baptism — " is freed from sin. Now 
if we be dead with Christ," in virtue of this 
baptism, " we believe that we shall also live with 
him." Now you may just substitute for " bap- 
tism " there the word " conversion " — " Know 
ye not, that so many of us as were converted, 
renewed, made new into Jesus Christ, were 
converted into his death ? Therefore we are 
buried with him by regeneration or renewal into 
death : that like as Christ was raised up from 
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so 
we also should walk in newness of life. For if 
we have been renewed, or converted, or re- 
generated together in the likeness of his death, 
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrec- 
tion." I quote another passage — Col. ii. 10. 
" And ye are complete in Christ, which is the 
head of all principality and power : in whom 
also ye are circumcised," using it in the sense 
of baptism, as the next verse shows, "w T ith the 



288 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

circumcision made without hands/' that is, not 
the outward rite, but this, namely, " in putting 
off the body of the sins of the flesh by the cir- 
cumcision of Christ : buried with him in baptism, 
wherein also ye are risen with him through the 
faith of the operation of God, who hath raised 
him from the dead. And you, being dead in 
your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, 
hath he quickened together with him, having 
forgiven you all trespasses ; blotting out the 
handwriting of ordinances that was against us, 
which was contrary to us, and took it out of the 
way, nailing it to his cross." Now the subjects 
of this burial in baptism with Christ are declared 
to be regenerated men : in this sense baptism is 
conversion ; in this sense, according to Peter, 
baptism doth save us, and in this sense the thief 
upon the cross was baptized ; but he was never 
baptized with water, for he never had the 
opportunity, and yet he was baptized with that 
baptism not made with hands, that is, with the 
inner baptism of the Holy Spirit of God, and 
became therefore a new creature. And it is a 
remarkable fact, which shows that the outer 
baptism is neither the inner baptism, nor essen- 
tial even to it, though dutiful in an orderly and 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



289 



rightly constituted church, that there is not one 
record in the New Testament that any one of 
the apostles was baptized. Now it seems a re- 
markable thing, and one would think it would 
strike with great force those who hold bap- 
tismal regeneration , that there is positively no 
evidence in the whole New Testament that the 
apostles were baptized, and there is no evidence 
that they thought that that outer baptism with 
water was necessarily a saving and a sanctifying 
grace. And as we have evidence that the thief 
upon the cross was baptized with that baptism 
which is saving and is regeneration, therefore 
we say that outer baptism is not essential in 
every case; and as we have no proof that the 
apostles were baptized with water, but over- 
whelming proof that they had that inner and 
true baptism, which is the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost, we have therefore evidence that there is 
an inner baptism that is essential, and an outer 
baptism dutiful in ordinary circumstances, but 
not necessary in all circumstances. Perhaps 
some will say that we cannot accept your asser- 
tion that the apostles were not baptized. I do 
not absolutely assert it, ail I say is that there is 
no record of it in the New Testament. But if 
u 



290 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

any choose to persist in the opposite assertion, 
that the apostles were baptized, it will only 
in another way establish my point the more ; 
for if all the apostles were baptized, Judas was 
also baptized ; and therefore he had the outer 
baptism with water and perished with it, whilst 
the thief upon the cross had the inner baptism 
without water, and was saved, and that very 
day admitted into paradise. 

There are thus four senses in which baptism 
is used, and in the last sense we find a kind of 
baptism of saving power ; but for men to allege 
that baptism with water is necessarily to be 
charged with all the effects of the other three 
baptisms, is to confound things that clearly dif- 
fer, and differ to the plainest reader, throughout 
the whole word of God. Therefore, when any 
one says to you, " Baptism is regeneration," do 
not say, " It is not " — that is not the way to 
reply; but ask him to define his terms — ask 
him which baptism ? If he says that baptism is 
the regeneration of the Holy Ghost, it certainly 
is so ; but if he says that baptism with water is 
essentially regeneration, then he is wrong, and 
is proclaiming a heresy as deadly and as mis- 
chievous, in its consequences, as its correlative 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



291 



and sister heresy, transubstantiation : for the 
party who makes baptism with water regenera- 
tion, does with one sacrament what others, who 
make the bread and wine the literal body and 
blood of Christ, do with the other sacrament. 
The one ascribes to the water the virtues which 
belong to the Holy Spirit ; the others pretend to 
change the bread and wine into the Deity and 
humanity of Jesus. Both equally pervert signs 
by turning them into substances, instead of 
holding them as the signs of great and precious 
truths. Let us, therefore, keep these baptisms 
distinct, as I have now endeavoured to show 
them, and there will be no possible misappre- 
hension about the meaning of the rite of bap- 
tism. I would add, while on this subject, that 
there is a creed about which a very acute and ta- 
lented prelate has made a great deal of noise, the 
Nicene Creed. Now he says, and says truly, 
there is in that creed this sentence, "One baptism 
for the remission of sins and every reply that 
he makes to any poor curate who dares to doubt 
that water baptism is regeneration, is ever elo- 
quent of this ; " One baptism for the remission 
of sins ee one baptism for the remission of 
sins." Now, in answer to this, I would say, I 
u 2 



292 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

believe that there is one baptism for the remis 
sion of sins, but the baptism, my lord, which I 
thus regard, is not the baptism which you mean, 
namely, with water, which is the one baptism, 
according to you, for the remission of sins ; but 
it is the baptism which I quoted from the Co- 
lo ssians and the Romans, and which an apostle 
holds to be most truly the remission of sins — a 
baptism that neither presbyter nor prelate can 
give, the sovereign gift of the Holy Spirit, at all 
times, and in all ages. I may just add, what is 
in no less conformity with what I have said, that 
the text upon which I am commenting, makes 
the distinction in the most unmistakeable terms ; 
for what does Peter say ? He evidently antici- 
pated the perversion that would be made of his 
meaning, for he states, " The like figure where- 
unto even baptism doth also now save us ; 99 but 
now mark what he adds, ( ce not the putting away 
of the filth of the flesh ; but the answer of a good 
conscience toward God;") or, translated into 
what is plainly the idea that the apostle meant, 
" The like figure whereunto baptism doth also 
now save us; not water baptism, not washing 
outside, but the answer of a good conscience 
which, as I shall show, is requisite alike for ap- 



BAPTISM BOTH SATE. 



293 



proach to the Lord's table, and for acceptance of 
the baptismal rite — " the answer of a good con- 
science toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ." We, therefore, see from Peter's own 
statement, that there may be a baptism which is 
not the answer of a good conscience, as there is 
a baptism which is the answer of a good con- 
science. In other words, there may be, says 
Peter, the ecclesiastical rite ; there may not be, 
under it, and with it, and inseparable from it, 
the inner and the spiritual change — in short, 
there may be the outer baptism, and not the 
inner. There may be the washing of the fore- 
head, and not the washing of the heart. The 
great work of the gospel is the inner one ; and 
if men would only recollect, in these days of 
disputes about a thousand extrinsic points, that 
the kingdom of God is not " meat nor drink," 
not dipping or sprinkling, not baptism with 
water, or any other, but is " righteousness, and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," they would 
estimate all signs, ceremonies, and rites, by the 
inner results to which they conduct, and would 
not put the one in the room of the other. Thus 
there is a baptism which is strictly and properly 
regeneration — that which the Holy Spirit be- 
stows ; and there is a baptism which is not re- 

! 



294 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

generation, but the simple sign of it — that which 
the minister can give. If we would also ever 
recollect another fact, I think we should not 
confound things that differ ; namely, that there 
is a visible church, with visible ceremonies, and 
that there is an inner church, visible as man may 
be, but undefinable in its limits by us, ever 
characterized by the inner change and inner 
feelings ; and the one corresponding to the other, 
as the shell corresponds with the kernel. You 
have in the outer church, baptism with water ; 
you have in the inner church, baptism with the 
Holy Spirit; you have in the outer church, com- 
munion with those who are partaking of the bread 
and wine upon the table ; you have in the inner 
church, that communion which is the conscious- 
ness of our fellowship and communion with God 
the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ ; and 
these two correspond the one to the other. The 
minister can distribute the bread and wine, and 
can administer the sacrament of baptism to outer 
recipients, but the Holy Spirit alone, when and 
where he pleases, can give the inner baptism J 
and the Lord Jesus, when and where he pleases, 
can establish the inner and true communion 
with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

What is this inner baptism which is here de- 



BAPTISM DOTH SATE. 



295 



clared to be so vital, and which is not the neces- 
sary and the inseparable accompaniment of that 
outer baptism which has been so often and so 
fruitlessly administered. It is said to be, " The 
answer of a good conscience toward God." 
Xow what is meant by the answer of a good 
conscience toward God ? The very first idea 
that is suggested, and the essential definition of 
that idea, is found in Heb. ix. 13, " For if the 
blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an 
heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the 
purifying of the flesh 99 — that is, an outer rite, 
an outer ceremony- — ei how much more shall the 
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit 
offered himself without spot to God, purge your 
conscience from dead works to serve the living 
God ! " Here, then, is the answer of a good con- 
science^ — it is, in its first and essential feature, a 
conscience cleansed by the blood of Christ 
Jesus; and the true baptism is referred to, in 
connexion with this, in the beautiful announce- 
ment of which Luther made so much, but of 
which we make so little, " The blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin ; " or if 
you like, " baptizeth us from all sin ; " for I do 
not think that Pa-rm^w and KaOaipw are essentially 



296 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

different ; and if you ask me what is the bap- 
tism that each converted man must have, I 
would answer, it is that baptism which is an- 
nounced in these words, and free to all, like 
the air we breathe, like the light we see, like 
the waves of the great deep — " the blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son baptizeth, or cleanseth, us 
from all sin." What therefore Ave have to do 
first in order to get that true baptism, whether 
we have been baptized in infancy or in riper 
years, or whether we have not been baptized 
at all ; the baptism that is instantly obligatory 
upon us, the baptism without which we can- 
not be forgiven, the baptism which we press as 
our privilege at this very moment, is instant 
confidence in this, " The blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us " from venial sin and mortal 
sin, sin of thought, sin of word, sin of deed, all 
past transgressions— no sin is so deep in its dye 
that it will not expunge it ; no sinner so in- 
veterate in his sins that it will not forgive him ; 
but an universal amnesty for all that will, in the 
blood of sprinkling, now, or, it may be, never. 
Have we consciences thus baptized ? Have our 
hearts been thus cleansed by the blood of Jesus ? 
To ascribe this great efficacy to any rite, or 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



297 



ceremony, or sacrament, is to try to steal a ray 
of glory from the Lord of the sacrament, and to 
put it on the sacrament ; and whoever does so 
will find that ray of glory convey a curse only 
into his own bosom. The only end of making 
baptism by water do what regeneration does, is 
to exalt the priest, to magnify the ceremony, 
and to put a precious rite, precious in its place, 
in the room of Him who often acts through 
means, often without means, and sometimes in 
spite of and against means. If there be one 
truth in Protestant Christianity more real and 
precious than another, it is this, that it brings 
us at once into contact and communion with 
God ; and it is the grand characteristic of every 
thing that usurps its place, that it keeps us 
trifling with the minister, or amused with the 
ceremony, or in contact with the sacrament, or 
stopping at some of the porches and outer gates 
of the sanctuary, instead of leading us to the 
very holy of holies, and there encouraging us 
to hold communion and fellowship face to face 
with God. This is the great feature, this the 
precious characteristic, of all true and scriptural 
religion. Have our consciences been thus bap- 
tized ? Will you allow me, my dear reader, to 



298 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

question your conscience ? I do not want you 
to answer me, but yourself to answer God ; and 
to ascertain, by the answer that you have within, 
whether your conscience has been baptized in 
that blood of sprinkling which cleanseth from 
all sin* 

First, then, I ask, what think you of Christ ? 
What answer do you give to that ? What weight 
do you lay upon his death ? What do you think 
of his atonement ? What is he to you ? Would 
you be what you are now, if you had never 
heard the majestic truth, a God has suffered 
that sinners might be redeemed ? Do you count 
all but loss for the excellency of him? Would 
you be ready to part with all for his sake ? Can 
you say, He is my only Mediator ; his blood my 
only trust, his death my only hope ; his finished 
work my only plea, and title to immortality and 
glory ? If your conscience can say, Yes, so far 
as that question goes, you have the answer of a 
good conscience toward God. 

Let me ask, in the next place, what is your 
hope, and what is your feeling towards the Holy 
Spirit of God ? Are you satisfied with baptism 
with water ? Are you satisfied with being decent 
with a decent externalism? Are you satisfied 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



299 



with being a man of indifferent life, but having, 
on the whole, a good heart — one of the greatest 
possible misstatements and misapprehensions ? 
Do you feel, in all its force, this great pre-re- 
quisite of heaven, " Except a man be born 
again," it matters not who he is, from the highest 
monarch to the meanest subject, — " except a man 
be born again " — what a change ! what a revo- 
lution ! a transition from one state totally distinct 
from the state into which you are introduced, — 
" except a man be born again, he cannot " even 
" see," much less " enter the kingdom of heaven." 
Do you feel, therefore, that that change must pass 
upon you ? Is it your petition that that change 
may pass upon you ? Is it your feeling, that 
though there may be much alloy to be removed, 
much dross, much deficiency, that yet your heart 
loves what once it hated, delights in what once 
it had no pleasure in, and cleaves to Him to 
whom it never clave supremely before ? I say 
supremely, because a man should love his profes- 
sion, but not supremely. Men generally perish, 
not by the love of the forbidden, but through the 
excessive love of that which is perfectly lawful. 

Let me ask, in the third place, what is your 
opinion of God the Father ? Do you think of 



300 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

him with, terror ? Does your conscience, like 
poor Eve, run from the sound of his footstep, 
and seek a hiding-place, not amid the bowers of 
the garden, but amid the follies, and the vani- 
ties, and the frivolities of this present world ? 
Or do you feel his presence delightful ? Would 
you feel, while you were writing in your ledger, 
if God were visibly to look on, that you could 
not stand it ? If it be so, then there is some- 
thing in that ledger that ought not to be there. 
Do you feel, when you are in your counting- 
house, and adjusting your losses and your gains, 
that if God were to come in, all would be wrong ? 
The Papal idea is more or less in us all. We 
think it is all very well to keep God within the 
four walls of the church ; but we will have no- 
thing to do with him outside. You come within 
the walls of the sanctuary to learn the lessons 
that you are to go forth in the world to carry 
out ; at your counting-houses, where you may do 
very much active good, or at your desk, or upon 
the ocean, or in the parliament, or in the de- 
fence of your rights and liberties. For in all 
these things you are doing God's work, as truly 
as I do, when from the heart I speak to the 
hearts of my people. Christianity is not a Sun- 



BAPTISM DOTH SAVE. 



301 



day garment, to put on the first day of the week, 
and then to be immediately taken oft the wearer, 
fearful lest it should be soiled in the world's 
dusty roads — that is not Christianity. Chris- 
tianity is not a splendid procession, a gorgeous 
ceremony, a beautiful rite ; but it is righteous- 
ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
What is your view, then, of God? Do you 
think of him with awe, with dismay ? Do you 
pray to him exactly as a criminal in the dock 
would do to a judge about to pronounce sen- 
tence upon him ? — that is not Christianity. You 
may go to God, if you are baptized with the 
true baptism, not as a criminal, to deprecate his 
wrath, but as a son and child, to seek a Father's 
grand benediction. It is the grand peculiarity 
of the gospel, that it brings us into communion 
with God the Father, and that we may approach 
him with confiding love, with all the absence of 
suspicion with which a loving child flies to the 
bosom of its loving mother, finding there a shel- 
ter from the stranger's gaze, and a protection 
from the perils that assail ; complete, unsus- 
pected, and entire. I believe that there is no 
better test of our Christianity, than the feelings 
that we have in reference to God. 



302 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

What think you of death ? Let conscience an- 
swer that. I do not say you should love death — 
that would be absurd. I have often said, that 
I believe death to be a most unnatural thing ; 
have you not noticed that the brute creation feel 
it so ? When a dog dies, as if conscious that 
death is the projected shadow of Adam's sin, 
he runs into a hole or nook that none may look 
on. What is that but the brute creation groan- 
ing for deliverance, and giving evidence that 
sin has entered, and so death has passed upon 
all. I do not ask you, then, do you seek to die ; 
I do not say that you should love death — we 
cannot love it — it is impossible ; but I ask, if it 
were to come, which it must, and it is well we 
know not when — whether it overtakes you in 
its dreadest aspect, as in the case of the crew of 
the Amazon, or whether it comes in its more 
quiet movements, when surrounded with sym- 
pathizing friends — I ask, if it come as a friend, 
could you say, I will welcome it ? If it come m 
as a foe, could you say, I will defy it ; and will 
be content to pass through the valley, drear and 
dark as it is, for the sake of what is beyond it 
— I will enter it with unfaltering footstep, for 
" thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" ? 



BAPTISM DOTH SATE. 



303 



Let me ask, in the next place, your con- 
science, and let your conscience answer, what 
do you think of the great white throne ? Would 
you feel then that your judge is, and was, your 
Saviour ? "Would you recognise, in his accents, 
these of Him who loved you, and washed you 
from your sins in his own blood ? Can you 
begin the triumphant pa? an of an apostle, and 
say, " All things are mine, life, death, Paul, 
Apollos, Cephas, things present, things past, and 
things to come ; all are mine, for I am Christ's, 
and Christ is God's ? " Can you say, in the 
language of lofty, but magnificent and Christian 
defiance, " Neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature, shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord " ? Let your conscience answer ; let 
the questions that I ask find an answer, not an 
echo there. 

What do you think, I ask, of God's holy 
word ? Is it to you a very dull book, a very 
dry book, a very uninteresting tale ? or is it 
the book of your study ? Do you feel it to be 
full of seams of gold, so that he who digs deepr 



301 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

est gathers most ? Do you find that word like 
a glorious ocean, whose floor is covered with 
precious pearls, so that he who dives oftenest 
and deepest, brings up most ? Do you regard 
it as the light to your path, the canon of your 
faith, by which you test difficulties ? the canon 
of your life, by which you try all its features ? 

What does your conscience answer respecting 
the Lord's day ? Is it the most precious of all ? 
Is it the sweetest, even, as it has been called, the 
princess of the week, a transcript in spirit, if 
not in fact, on the earth that now is, from the 
joyous heaven that will be ? And are you glad 
when Saturday comes ? and are you sorry, if 
a Christian should be sorry, when sabbath 
closes ? Beautiful idea, there is one day in the 
week when the greatest and the poorest in 
the land can meet together, and say, We are 
peers, and God is the Maker of us all ! What a 
noble equality is this, what a real and substantial 
brotherhood! Do not wonder that ministers of 
the gospel seek so often to get the sabbath vin- 
dicated — its extinction would be an irreparable 
loss. I would rather see all our cathedrals, 
beautiful as they are, swept to the bottom of the 
sea, than that day profaned, and snatched from 



BAPTISM DOTH SATE. 



395 



the poor man's home,, and from all men's sanc- 
tuary. How do yon love the Lord's day ? I 
do not mean a Jewish sabbath ; I do not advo- 
cate the very peculiar views that some have ; it 
is a joyous and holy day ; God blessed it, not 
cursed it — it is a festival, not a fast ; it is a day 
for all that improves our hearts and instructs our 
minds — for expressing our wants in prayer and 
our thanks in praise. If we be Christ's we 
love it. 

What do we think of the Lord's table ? Do 
we regard it as a resting-place, the recurrence 
of which, time after time, we rejoice in? Do 
we come to the Lord's table, not as to an awful 
tragedy, but as to a glad and beautiful festival, 
a eucharistic or thanksgiving offering ? God 
wishes us only good ; it is our privilege to be 
there ; it is his promise to meet us there ; it is 
an occasion on which there should be many 
bounding hearts, and few if any heavy ones. It 
is a day on which we meet a Father at a Father's 
board, and tell him of our failings, our falterings, 
and our mercies, and ask of him that blessing 
especially over the symbols of his love, which he 
rejoices to bestow. Can we say, that with all 
our falterings, and failings, and short-comings, 
x 



306 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and misgivings, the bent and strain of our 
hearts are towards joy, and holiness, and hea- 
ven ? Can we say, there is much in me to 
deplore, still more that needs to be forgiven ; 
much that will break out, worse, probably, than 
ever broke out before ; and yet can each say, 
u For my rejoicing is the testimony of my consci- 
ence, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not 
with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, I 
have had my conversation in the world. 5 * 

One word more, and I have done. True 
religion is not a thing political, nor a thing 
ecclesiastical, nor a thing corporate, but a thing 
personal, — it is the answer of the individual con- 
science. You cannot be saved as one of a body, 
you must be saved individually. Whatever 
system goes to depreciate personal religion, is a 
mischievous one. That system that would shut 
the closet, or would rather cover up the text, 
ec When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, 55 in 
order to exalt the temple, only goes to destroy 
both ; there must first be individual dealing with 
God, before there can be any true and acceptable 
public worship before him. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH* 

" The steps of faith. 
Fall on the seeming void, and find 
The rock beneath." 

" And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him." — 
Gen. vii. 5. 

Believers gained victories in antediluvian 
days. We are told by another penman that 
Noah built the ark by faith ; that by faith he 
entered into it. preached a righteousness that 
was the only title to salvation, and became him- 
self, by faith, the heir of the righteousness 
which is by faith. (Heb. xi.) We are told in 
the one page of Scripture, that Noah lived, 
and walked, and triumphed by faith ; we are 
told in another passage of Scripture, that he was 
righteous — alone righteous — in that generation ; 
and that because he believed, and was thus 
righteous, doing all that God commanded him, 
he was saved in the judgment that overtook and 
overwhelmed the world. There is no more con- 
x 2 



308 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tradiction here between the assertion that faith 
was all by the one penman, and the assertion that 
his personal righteousness was all by the other 
penman, than there is contradiction between 
Paul, who says we are justified by faith, and 
James, who says we are justified by works. The 
faith is the root and spring out of which the right- 
eousness which is by faith, that is, sanctification 
of character, must continually proceed ; and it 
was just because Noah lived by faith, that Noah's 
life was illustrated by righteousness. In other 
words, the faith of the gospel of Christ is not a 
solitary ascetic, that builds its cell and lives in it 
alone, but, on the contrary, the prolific parent 
of whatsoever things are pure, and just, and ho- 
nest, and lovely, and of good report — to faith is 
added virtue, and to virtue brotherly kindness, 
and to brotherly kindness charity. It is thus 
that faith, in a Christian's heart is the source 
of all the good works that adorn a Chris- 
tian's life ; and it is to illustrate the connexion 
between these two that I proceed to unfold 
these words — QC Noah did according unto all that 
the Lord commanded him." 

Before entering on this, I would observe, that 
good works are not stones added to faith, as if 



THE VICTORY OP FAITH. 



309 



it were only a lower stone in the superstructure, 
disconnected with it, vet instantly following 
it. or laid upon it ; but they are fruits, and 
flowers — the same vitality that is in the root is 
in the topmost bough : and the tree bears fruit, 
because it has life. Therefore a symbol of a 
Christian is that of a tree, that by faith brings 
forth fruits of righteousness, and not that of a 
building — one stone laid upon another, and 
others superadded continuing the courses. 

To show the faith that Xoah must have had, 
and how truly it was by faith in God's word 
that he surmounted no ordinary obstacles, I 
would state some of those difficulties which must 
have presented themselves to Noah's mind. He 
may have thought, surely God will not be so 
severe. I have found him a loving, affectionate, 
and kind Father ; I have found him bearing and 
forbearing. And he might have argued, as the 
serpent argued with Adam and Eve, " Ye shall 
not surely die." God has uttered this as a threat 
which he does not mean to execute ; and there- 
fore I will not be at the trouble of making such 
vast preparations for what, in all probability, 
will not occur at all. 

Again, the reasoning of the enemies of God 



810 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

must have appeared to Noah, very startling, 
though not strong enough to arrest his pro- 
cedure. Some of the scientific men of that day 
said, no doubt, Where will sufficient water be 
found ? How shall such a weight of water be 
lifted from the depths of the sea, and made to 
overflow the highest hills ? If the worst come to 
the worst, and there be this flood, we shall find 
shelter in some spots that it will not reach, or 
we shall be able to set afloat some vessels, in 
which we shall be saved. And therefore we 
will neither enter the ark, nor believe your pro- 
phecy, nor in any way accept your proposals. 
Now the only answer that Noah could give to 
all this was, 66 Thus saith the Lord." Probably 
Noah could not answer scientific objections by 
scientific solutions, but he could say, " Thus 
saith the Lord " created the world, and " Thus 
saith the Lord " maintains it, and " Thus saith 
the Lord" is able to reduce it to its pristine 
chaos — as it is positively predicted. So must it 
be. We must not look at a thing that could 
have been, or how it is possible it may be, but 
simply ascertain from that Book, which speaks 
without error, what God has said, and what his 
holy mind is. 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH* 



No ah , too, in doing all that God command- 
ed him, must himself have felt that he had 
great difficulties to encounter. He had not only 
the doubts and suspicions of his own heart to 
overcome, he had not only the cavils and the ob- 
jections of his enemies to repel, but he had also 
difficulties in his own inward feelings and per- 
sonal position, that must have made him hesitate 
not a little. How shall I build a vessel, he may 
have thought, seeing I have never lifted an axe 
before ? and how shall I, who am not a sailor, 
navigate it upon unknown tempestuous seas 
without a chart, a compass, or any acquaint- 
ance with the management of the helm ? And 
if I do so, how shall I induce all the beasts 
of the earth, and the birds of the air, and 
the creeping tilings, pair by pair, to enter 
into this ark I These difficulties, no doubt, 
did array themselves in his imagination, and 
made him sometimes hesitate. But faith can 
think what others only dream of, and it can do 
what others think, and it can triumph where 
others only attempt. And having, therefore, 
God's word, " This shall be,'*' and God's com- 
mand, u This do you," Xoah by faith " did ac- 
cording unto all that the Lord commanded him." 



312 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Thus it was by faith, that Noah set to work, and 
built the ark, and prepared for the coming 
Flood — and that faith, we read, was crowned with 
triumphant results ; and those who doubted his 
word, and disbelieved God's being, as well as the 
possibility of God's judgments, soon saw that 
the old fanatic — they proclaimed him to be so a 
hundred years before — was the true and faithful 
prophet. When the fountains of the great 
deep and the windows of heaven began to break 
open, and all nature, as if rising on earth against 
humanity, opened its terrible artillery upon 
the world, they who once laughed at him 
as a fanatic, accepted him as a prophet ; they 
who expelled him from their society were now 
almost ready to worship him. The greatest 
sceptics are invariably, in the hour of approach- 
ing danger, the greatest cowards, and the re- 
bound from utter derision to idolatry is a very 
easy and a very frequent one. 

Noah, as another part of what God command- 
ed him, spoke to the creatures — the four-footed 
beasts of the earth, the birds of the air, and all 
creeping things, and summoned them to come 
into the ark. At first he feared this was 
an impossible thing ; but no sooner did he 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 813 

open his lips to utter God's command, than in- 
stantly all the animated things heard and obeyed 
him. Here was a vestige of the ancient domin- 
ion over nature j which man had lost, restored 
to Noah upon this occasion — teaching us that 
still the way to recover man's lost dominion over 
nature, is for him to recover God's image upon 
his own soul. Noah obeyed God, and all na- 
ture obeyed Noah. The highest servant of God 
will always be found to be the greatest sove- 
reign of nature around him. And do we not 
see traces of this in the fact, that as nations grow 
in their Christian character, in the same ratio 
almost do they grow in all that ennobles, ele- 
vates, and exalts a country ? Where is it that 
you find the highest science, the purest litera- 
ture, the noblest philosophy ? Are not these 
plants that grow upon the soil that has been 
watered by the dew, and shone upon by the 
beams of the Sun of righteousness ? Where is 
it that you see man the great sea-lord and land- 
lord of all? It is where Christianity has its 
deepest hold, and where its transforming influ- 
ence has been most thoroughly felt. Just in 
proportion as a nation grows in its moral cha- 
racter, dees it recover its mastery over the ani- 



314 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

mate and inanimate creation around it— a fore- 
token, a pledge, and an earnest of that day that 
will surely come, when man shall have restamped 
upon him once more the perfect image of his God, 
and nature again shall recognise her Sovereign 
and her Lord in him. The reins were dropped 
when Adam fell ; the reins will be replaced in 
man's hand when the second Adam comes. He 
lost his sovereignty by sin, he will regain his 
sovereignty by righteousness ; and the beasts 
obeying Noah, and the miracles that Jesus did, 
are all pledges and earnests that it will ulti- 
mately be so. 

Another part of what Noah did, as God com- 
manded him, was to walk with God. It is re- 
corded in another passage that Noah walked with 
God. This is a very beautiful and expressive 
proof of Christian character. He walked safely, 
because where God advanced, he moved ; where 
God stood, he stood still ; and thus walking with 
God, rough places became smooth, difficulties 
disappeared, hills were levelled, valleys were 
filled up, and all things became plain to him 
who felt that he was overshadowed by the 
power, and inspired by the directing wisdom, of 
Almighty God. The course that we are to 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



315 



pursue still; is just that course which was trod- 
den by the footsteps of Noah before us — we too 
are to walk with God, doing what he commands, 
following the example that he sets, listening to 
a word upon the right hand and upon the left, 
saying continually, " This is the way, walk ye 
in it;" and so our last step will cross the 
valley of the shadow of death, and our footsteps 
echo on the floor of that everlasting rest that 
remaineth. for the people of God. We find 
that what Xoah did in obedience to the word 
of God was a victory ; that each step that 
Xoah took in the course prescribed and pointed 
out by God, was happiness to himself. They 
who doubted God's word, and preferred the 
conclusions of their own sceptic wisdom, per- 
ished ; he who believed, in the face of difficul- 
ties, in the spite of plausible objections, the sim- 
ple " Thus saith the Lord," proved in the issue 
the grandest philosopher, by being preserved 
alone — -a monument of this great fact, that one 
word of God is stronger than the pillars that 
sustain the universe itself. 

After Noah had thus acted, and entered 
the ark, and all things had happened as God 
predicted, though better than Xoah expected, 



316 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD, 

we read, in beautiful words, in the 16th verse, 
that " God shut him. in." What an exquisite 
touch is that single sentence — " God shut him 
in ! " What a striking illustration that he who 
begins our course must end it, and that he who 
is the author of our salvation must also be its 
finisher ! It was as necessary that God's hand 
should shut that door, as it was that God's pre- 
scriptions should open it. It was as necessary 
that God should take care of Noah while he was 
in the ark, as that God should appoint that ark 
as the retreat of safety for Noah and his family. 
If the ark be in any sense a type of our blessed 
Lord, it is as necessary that God should keep 
us in the Saviour, as it is that he should place 
us in the Saviour. Our salvation is not com- 
plete by being placed in Christ ; it is only 
complete by being kept in Christ. We are 
told by an apostle, that " we are kept through 
faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the 
last time." And we are told by the Saviour 
himself, " I give unto them eternal life, and none 
shall be able to pluck them out of my hand." 
A Christian is not one who believes he is placed 
in Christ, and therefore ceases to hear, to pray, 
to look, to feel ; but one who not only feels that 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



317 



he must be placed in Christ by the hand that 
made him through the exercise of personal faith 
on his part, but who looks and leans on, and 
derives momentum and direction from, the same 
arm that put him there ; and who feels at every 
step of his beautiful and happy progression, that 
unless the God keep him who first justified him, 
he can never see happiness and heaven. It is 
thus that a Christian feels the necessity of a 
ceaseless reliance upon God, and that he is safe 
not from the strength of his faith, but from the 
pledges and the promises of Him who gave it. 
When Noah was in that frail ark, he was safer 
than those who were in the strongest ships that 
floated and tried to find safety upon that tem- 
pestuous and agitated ocean. Not by the 
strength of his vessel, but by the protection of 
his God, was Noah safe. We too in Christ J esus 
are safe, not because our faith is so strong, but 
because his hold of us is so real. I have no 
doubt that when Noah sat in the ark, and heard 
the heavy rains descend upon its roof, and felt 
the agitated and convulsive shock of the wave 
that swept by, and saw the peaks of the dis- 
tant hills almost covered, he had many a fear, 
and was agitated by many a conflicting emotion, 



318 THE CHURCH BEFOUE THE FLOOD* 

and that lie often thought that .he should still be 
ingulfed amid those merciless and deep waters. 
But because his faith trembled, and his fears 
predominated, his safety was not therefore im^ 
periled. His safety was not the strength of his 
faith, but the protection and the promises of his 
God. And so a Christian now may in Christ 
Jesus, his better ark, have many a fear, and 
doubt, and sore perplexity, many a suspicion ; 
but yet he is safe. The weakness of our faith 
does not affect the strength of our Saviour ; we 
are safe, not in the strength of our faith, but 
only in the relationship — the unchanged and un- 
changing relationship — of Him who is our refuge 
and our shelter, and our salvation, and all we 
need to keep us prosperous and progressive upon 
earth, and finally to waft us across time's floods 
and tempests, not to a bleak Ararat again, to go 
down upon a poor and dismantled earth, but to 
the eternal hills of the heavenly Jerusalem. 

Let us, after touching upon these points in 
Noah's obedience, notice, as applicable to us, 
that faith which Noah had, and the fruits of 
which are embodied in the single but expressive 
text, ff Noah did according unto all that the 
Lord commanded him." The secret of our 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH, 319 

safety from the floods of a coming judgment is 
faith in Christ, as truly, and as really, as the 
safety of Noah and his family from that deluge 
yras entering into the ark. I do not institute 
here a parallel between Christ and the ark. 
I dwell upon this one point, that our safety 
from the coming judgments of heaven is just 
the same with reference to Christ, that Xoah's 
safety from the coming deluge was with re- 
ference to that ark into which he entered, 
and in which he dwelt for a season. What is 
this faith then of ours, which is to be to us an 
element of such confidence ? It is defined by an 
apostle, in language on which I shall comment 
again, as " the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen." It is not 
merely a subscription to a creed, however ortho- 
dox : it is not a mere enthusiastic conviction. 
" It is all right with me y' it is not a blind 
credulity that accepts things with unreasoning 
submission : it is the inspiration of God's Spirit, 
that accepts truths that are avouched to be the 
truths of God by the signature they bear, and 
that gives hospitality in its bosom to many bright 
and certain hopes, that are sent as angel-visitants 
from Him who alone can give man faith, and 



320 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

enrich man's heart with hope, and joy, and 
peace in believing. 

This faith is not an emotion so totally differ- 
ent from the original furniture of our minds, 
that we can form no idea of it until we are 
changed by the Holy Spirit of God. Faith is 
found in every man's bosom in reference to some 
things. For instance, the confidence of a bat- 
talion, on the field of battle, in a great and ex- 
perienced commander ; the confidence of a crew 
in the captain of a ship in a heavy gale and in 
a tempestuous sea ; the confidence that a mer- 
chant has in his far-distant correspondent, whom 
he never saw in the flesh, but in whom, never- 
theless, he has perfect and implicit trust- 
all these are faith in the sphere of the human ; 
and the faith which is saving is the transference 
of the same emotion, inspired by the Spirit of 
God, to the sphere of the Divine and the eter- 
nal. Thus faith in Christ Jesus is not an incon- 
ceivable thing. We all have some idea of it as that 
by which society hangs together and coheres ; 
the exhaustion of which from the world of man- 
kind would be the exhaustion of its only cement, 
and its precipitation into disorganization and 
moral chaos. Now, just conceive the transfer- 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



•3:21 



ence of your confidence in the leader of the 
army, in the captain of the ship, in the distant 
merchant, to Him who is the King of kings, the 
Captain of our salvation, in whom trust may be 
placed implicitly, and on whose word confidence 
may lean its weight, and not fear that one jot or 
tittle shall pass away until all shall be fulfilled. 
Thus we see faith in Christ Jesus is an emotion 
we are not wholly strangers to ; thus faith in- 
spired by his Holy Spirit, grows to be a saving 
grace, justified by which we have peace with 
God. 

What a blessed fact is it, that God has placed 
our salvation on faith ! A babe can trust when a 
babe cannot reason. A very infant can trust in 
its mother for its nutriment, its shelter, and its 
safety, though it cannot reason : and most men 
can trust in God's word, when they cannot rea- 
son out the why or the wherefore of it. If God, 
for instance, had made salvation contingent upon 
laborious study, upon elaborate induction, upon 
s:reat learning, what woidd have become of the 
voung, the illiterate, the mass of mankind I If 
God had said, You must be a Butler, or you 
must be a Paley, or some other great scholar, be- 
fore you can get to heaven, what would have 

Y 



323 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

become of the poor, the illiterate/ the laborious ? 
If God had said, You can get to heaven as a 
great scientific scholar, there would have been 
in that, in some degree, the product of man's 
own genius. But when He says, The great 
scholar and the illiterate man are both saved 
simply by what each can equally reach, their be- 
lieving the word and the truth of God, there is 
nothing herein in which a man can glory. It is 
no merit to any to believe in a credible wit- 
ness — you never heard it said that there was 
any credit in believing the testimony of a credi- 
ble witness ; and so, God making our salvation 
contingent upon our simply believing the testi- 
mony of the truth-telling God, takes away and 
nips in the very bud all ideas or possibility of 
self-glory, or self-righteousness, or merit of any 
kind. It is thus, we are saved by faith in God, 
that no flesh may glory ; saved by faith, that no 
flesh may despair; saved by faith, that the 
scholar may not say, My learning did it, and I 
may glory in that ; saved by faith, that the pooiv 
est and the most illiterate may not give up, as if 
the want of great attainments were a reason why 
they should lose the privileges, the blessings, and 
the hopes of the gospel of Christ. We are saved 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



323 



in such a way that the loftiest and the poorest 
upon earth must believe in order to be saved ; ^ r e 
are saved in such a way that the worst of man- 
kind may believe in order to be saved. There is 
no immorality too deep for the hand of Christ not 
to descend and pluck the victim from it ; and 
there is no purity so lofty, that it goes beyond 
the range of the requirement of a holy law, or of 
the need of the atoning and cleansing blood of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence we have in faith 
that which takes away all possibility of merit, 
which makes the gospel scheme so simple and 
so intelligible, which encourages all men, and 
calls upon them by the highest prospects of 
glory, and the fear of the greatest perils of the 
future, to believe in the Lord J esus Christ, and 
believing in him, to have life through his name. 

Yet, this scheme of mercy, this mode of sav- 
ing sinners, is not a plan that encourages in the 
least degree the licentiousness of the human 
heart. It is not true that, justified by faith 
alone, we are thereby absolved from all the 
obligations of God's unchangeable and lasting 
law. The best proof — that the greatest believers 
have ever been the greatest doers — has just been 
the record of the past. It was by faith that 



324 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Noah was saved, and yet the character of Noah 
was so righteous, so spotless, and his conduct so 
unimpeachable. It was by faith that Enoch 
was translated that he should not see death ; and 
yet his life was characterized by a ceaseless 
walking with God. Thus, it appears from the 
perusal of the lives of sainted men, that they 
who made faith everything, and insisted upon 
it as the most vital and essential grace in the 
Christian character, were most characterized by 
all the fruits of the Spirit, and most diligently 
added to their faith virtue, and to virtue godli- 
ness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and 
to brotherly kindness charity. Faith, in Noah, 
was the source of Noah's obedience to God. 
Faith, in Abraham, was the secret of his going 
forth, he knew not whither, in obedience to the 
mandate of God. And the reason why faith is 
ever so holy in its fruits is, that the same faith 
that believes in the Saviour's atoning blood, be ■ 
lieves in the necessity and the promise and the 
possession of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying virtue. 
The same heart that is open to receive Christ as 
an atonement, is in that opening made ready to 
receive the Holy Spirit as a Sanctifier. No 
true Christian believes that Christ came to ca 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



325 



nonize the works of the devilj but every true 
Christian believes that Christ, came to destroy 
the works of the devil. The highest grace saves 
us_, not in our sins, but from our sins, — : their 
curse; their condemnation, and their power. 
Read the roll-call of the illustrious dead in the 
11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
every one of whose names is like a trumpet- 
sound, stirring and full of power, and you will 
find that it was those who were signalized by 
the most childlike faith who were also cha- 
racterized by the most beautiful and ennobling 
traits of the Christian character, as that cha- 
racter is portrayed in the word of God. Thus 
we see how consistent it is, that one who by faith 
believed God's testimony, did, through the in- 
spiration of that faith, all that God had com- 
manded him. 

There is another reason, I may state, why 
faith is so very precious. It is that grace which 
turns constantly to God, leans on him, watches 
for the expression of his will, sits at his feet, 
and is ever ready to go forth and do what he 
bids. This faith is the leaning of weakness 
upon Omnipotence, of the finite upon the in- 
finite, of ignorance upon wisdom, and of sin 



326 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

upon the rich mercy that is pledged and pro- 
mised to wash it all away. Faith is to the 
Christian the attraction that draws him con- 
stantly to God, the vital chord along which 
God's love comes down to us, and in the enjoy* 
ment of which, therefore, we are replaced and 
reinstated in that union and communion with 
God which was lost by sin and is restored only 
in the gospel. 

It is a very beautiful arrangement and very 
delightful to us, that .this faith is the creature's 
resting not upon anything beneath it. If our 
faith be in a man, in a king, in a priest, in a 
saint, it is in something not higher than om> 
selves ; but the grand provision of the gospel is, 
that our trust shall be exercised in One who is 
higher, holier, better, infinitely than we ; that 
we shall approximate to One who is infinitely 
distant, but infinitely grand ; that we shall lean 
upon One who is greater than all, and leaning 
upon whom we are increasingly ennobled, dig- 
nified, strengthened. Were the tree of a hun- 
dred years, or two or three hundred years, to 
lean upon a plant of two or three years, it would 
be absurd. It is the weak plant that leans upon 
the stronger of many centuries. A Christian is 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



327 



the parasite of the Tree of Life — he leans upon 
it, derives his nutriment from it, and is strong, 
not in his own strength, but in its strength ; and 
is sheltered, not by his own leaves, but by its 
branches : so that in his safety, in his nutriment, 
in his leaning, in his direction, Christ — the Tree 
of Life — is all and in all. Wherever there is 
simple faith, there is also the most active obe- 
dience, the greatest dignity, the truest progress 
and happiness. 

We read also, that on account of Noah's 
faith all his family were blessed. What an in- 
teresting and instructive lesson is in this simple 
fact, that our families are blessed in the ratio in 
which the heads of them lean on and take direc- 
tion from God ! It is a law impressed upon the 
history of the world, that when the heads of na- 
» tions do what is lawful and right, the meanest 
subjects of those nations share in the Divine 
benedictions. It is the law of the domestic circle^ 
that the parent living unto God, and receiving 
direction from him, like a divine conductor, 
brings down blessings from the skies upon all 
that are around and beneath him. " Come thou 
and all thy house into the ark ; for thee " — not 
thee and all thy house have I seen, but " thee 



828 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

have I seen righteous before me in this gener- 
ation." What an inducement, then, is this to all 
who are in authority, to all who have great 
power, to seek to be, and to be sure that they 
are, inspired and directed by Almighty grace ! 
Whether we approve of it or not, it is the law of 
nations, it is the testimony of God, that peoples 
and families are blessed when their heads and 
governors live in the fear of Him by whom kings 
reign and princes decree justice. 

Coming years may be to us, writer and reader, 
like the waters of the Flood to the antediluvian 
race, a new and awful baptism. Not a year 
that comes can be a pledge that the next will 
be one of national, or universal, or European 
prosperity, progress, happiness, and peace. 
Review the last six, or seven, or ten years : 
every year in succession has been an epoch — * 
some striking phenomenon has characterized 
it ; and what these have been, the coming years 
will be, and more : as the time gets shorter events 
will be crowded into them thicker ; and those 
events will strike and tell with more startling 
momentum upon the nations and the history of 
mankind. Perhaps in another year or two the 
whole fountains of our social system may be 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



329 



broken up ; the great deeps of society, stirred 
by all strange elements ; and the highest pin- 
nacles and mountain crags of human grandeur 
and human greatness, may be overflowed by a 
more terrific flood than has ever swept the earth. 
1853 will only be another stage in that pro- 
gression in which we are now rushing. Are 
we, in the prospect of these things, in the true 
Ark I Have we entered by faith into the Son 
of God ? It is not calculating what will be, or 
guessing what may be, or even acquaintance 
with unfulfilled prophecy, however valuable, 
that will shield and save us. Our safety is in 
the Ark, our shelter is in the Son of God. And 
if we, by living, personal, individual trust, are 
this day looking to his precious blood as the 
only absolution from our sins, and to his Holy 
Spirit as the only Sanctifier and Comforter, 
then come flood, come fire, come the breaking 
up of all ancient settlements, come the crashing 
and overturning of all great dynasties, let the 
windows of heaven pour down judgments, and 
the responsive deeps of society break up and 
pour forth their contents, yet we have ec a river, 
the streams whereof make glad the city of our 
God. God is our refuge and our strength." 



830 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



We hear now what we shall try to realize then, 
" Come , my people, in the prospect of 1853, 
1854, and their dire or welcome phenomena — 
come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, 
shut thy doors ; wait a little moment until the 
indignation be overpast." Is this your shelter ? 
Is this your refuge ? Let every man examine 
himself; let us try ourselves, let us ascertain 
where our trust is, what is our dependence at 
this moment, and, in the prospect of the future, 
where we stand now in the present. Noah 
preached to thousands who would not hear him ; 
let not the ministers of the gospel preach to 
you, and find you also equally sceptical. They 
perished temporally ; we perish, by neglecting 
the great salvation, eternally. Christ himself 
preaches to us, " Come unto me, all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest." And if we are in that Ark, however 
poor, however minute, and insignificant in the 
social scale, God can no more forget us than he 
can forget himself. What a blessed thought 
is it, that he who remembered Noah in the ark, 
watched every wave, meted out every wind, 
shaped its course, and carried to Ararat, is 
as truly taking care of the poorest Christian 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH. 



331 



orphan or widow, as if that orphan or widow 
were the only being in the whole universe ! A 
mother may forget her son, that she should not 
have compassion on the child of her womb ; yet 
will God not forget thee. He has graven thee 
upon the palms of his hands, he holds thee in 
everlasting remembrance. " For this is as the 
waters of Noah unto me : for as I have sworn 
that the waters of Noah should no more go over 
the earth ; so have I sworn that I would not 
be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the 
mountains shall depart, and the hills be re- 
moved ; but my kindness shall not depart from 
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be 
removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on 
thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and 
not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones 
with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with 
sapphires." Again, reader, let me ask, are you 
in Christ, the true Ark ? Do you trust in him 
for eternal things, for spiritual things, as much 
as the soldier leans on his colonel, as the mer- 
chant trusts in his correspondent, as the sailor 
looks to the captain of the vessel? Do you 
trust truly, really, enthusiastically, in reference 
to the soul's safety and happiness, in Christ 



332 THE CHUECH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Jesus, the only one who can save/ sanctify, and 
preserve it ? It is a simple question ; it is a 
vital one ; and we beseech you, in Christ's stead, 
be ye reconciled to God ; for he hath made him 
who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God by him. 



CHAPTER XII. 



HIGH CHTJRCHMANSHIP. 

" Mothers can tell how oft 
In the heart's eloquence the prayer goes up 
From a sealed lip ; and tenderly hath blent 
"With the warm teaching of the sacred tale, 
A voiceless wish, that when that timid soul, 
Now in the rosy mesh of infancy 
Fast bound, shall dare the billows of the world. 
Like that exploring dove, and find no rest, 
A pierced, a pitying, a redeeming hand 
May gently guide it to the ark of peace." 

'• Come thou and all thy house into the ark," — Gen. vii. I. 

We are told, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
that it was "hj faith 5 ' that " Noah prepared the 
ark, to the saving of himself and household ;" 
and we are told, by the apostle Peter, that spi- 
ritual " baptism," the baptism of the Holy 
Spirit, is connected in the way we have seen 
with the symbol that is here employed in the 
book of Genesis. 

" Noah " means " rest," or " repose ;" and as 
such, we believe that Xoah is an expressive 
symbol, or at least illustrative to his extent, of 



334 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Him who is the only rest of his believing people. 
Our Lord himself says, " Come unto me, all ye 
that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest and he is frequently spoken of in 
Scripture as the " Noah " of his people — that is, 
the rest of his people. Now whether the one 
was designed to be a type of the other, I cannot 
eay ; but, certainly, the meaning of the one is 
an inadequate expression for the excellence, 
perfection, and glory of the other. There is but 
one Noah in the whole universe of God — the 
Lord J esus Christ ; there is but one spot, from 
the nadir up to the very zenith, which can be 
the rest of an immortal soul, or a foundation for 
the superstructure of our hopes and prospects 
for eternity. All things change but Christ. 
Opinions, politics, parties, preferences, prejudices 
— all are undergoing a perpetual change ; and 
in the present day there seems to be that social 
ferment which precedes new combinations— that 
disintegration of the atoms that constitute so- 
ciety which always takes place prior to new 
crystalization. But amidst the changes of em- 
pires, the fall of dynasties, the war of parties, 
the collision of sentiments, One remains — the 
great central column of the universe, against 



HIGH CHURCHMANSHTP, 



which we may lean and feel at ease — our Xoah, 
our rest, tlie Lord Jesus Christ. 

Xoah was not only a w rest/' as his name de- 
notes, but i: a preacher of righteousness." Xoah 
preached the righteousness of Christ — Christ 
preaches his own : Noah's language was, Be- 
hold the Lamb of God " — Christ's language is, 
" I that speak unto thee am he." X oah preach- 
ed that only righteousness which has been, and 
ever will be, the only mode of a sinner's accept- 
ance before God ; and hence the righteousness 
which Xoah preached, and which Christ per- 
formed, is the righteousness in which the antedi- 
luvians trusted, in which Abraham and the pa- 
triarchs gloried, which the Levitical shadows and 
sacrifices typified, which prophets foretold, which 
Christ completed, which evangelists recorded, 
which apostles proclaimed, and martyrs sealed 
with their- blood at the stake. There have never 
been two ways of acceptance before God, or two 
religions. There is and has been but one. It 
was developed from Paradise to Calvary, but 
still the same. The antediluvian was the seed, 
the patriarchal was the stem, the Levitical was 
the bud — the Christian is the full-grown tree in 
fragrant and beauteous blossom. It is the per- 



336 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

fection only, not the opposite, of all the preced- 
ing ; hence Christianity is not a new religion, 
but the old religion ; and Protestantism, its last 
type, is only Christianity in conflict with the 
errors that have overlaid it, and the superstitions 
that have been incrusted upon it. 

Though Noah was " a preacher of righteous- 
ness," all his warnings were despised by the 
generation to whom he addressed them. What 
does this teach us ? That truth never has been 
popular in the world. It is not only a world of 
sin, but a world of lies ; and man has ever 
loved the lie, which speaks to him peace ; and 
he has ever hated the truth, that rebukes his 
sins and proclaims the reality of his condition. 
Never was truth preached in the world more 
faithfully or more affectionately than Jesus 
preached it ; and never did truth meet with a 
more stern or terrible rejection. The fact is, 
that man, till he is taught by the Spirit of God, 
cannot stand the truth about himself ; for to 
hear the whole truth, and feel it, about his state 
by sin, would make him — must make him — 
either commit suicide j or believe in Christ Jesus. 
The whole truth about his state, must either 
drive a man to the very brink of despair, or it 



HIGH CHTJRCHMANSHIP. 387 

must draw him unto Him who puts an end to 
all despair, by forgiving all sin. When Noah 
preached to the world the judgments that were 
ready to overwhelm it, I have already said that 
it was likely demonstrated to the entire satisfac- 
tion of all the scientific institutes of the antedilu- 
vian world, that the flood was an impossibility 
and an absurdity ; when Noah predicted its ad- 
vent, the astronomers of that day proved to 
absolute demonstration, that no planetary force 
could be exerted adequate to move the ocean 
from its oozy bed, and to make it overflow the 
highest mountains of the earth ; and the geolo- 
gists of his time argued, that the lower strata of 
the earth consisted of fire, rather than of water ; 
and I have as little doubt that the Charivari and 
newspaper caricaturists of the time mocked the 
fanatic old man, for telling them that the Flood 
was about to overflow the world, and sweep 
them from the face of the earth. But the great 
fact which upset all theories came in the burst- 
ing earth, and the opening firmament of heaven, 
and the Flood, that swept away the demonstra- 
tions and the demonstrators with them. So 
will it be again. We are told that in the last 
days " there shall be scoffers, walking after their 

z 



338 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

own lusts;" and they shall say, "Where is 
the promise of His coming ? for since the fathers 
fell asleep, all things continue as they were 
from the creation of the world ; " not knowing 
that " one day is with the Lord as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day." And 
" as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be 
when the Son of Man cometh ; men shall be 
eating, and drinking, and marrying, and giving 
in marriage," even as they were when the Flood 
came. 

So much for the person here spoken of. 

Let me now notice, in the second place, the 
object — the ark. There are two things which 
bear the same name — the ark in which Noah 
and his family floated to Ararat, and the ark of 
the testimony, which was kept in the holy place, 
and covered with the mercy-seat. These are 
two very different things. The ark here is the 
wooden vessel, constructed after the prescrip- 
tion of God, which carried Noah and his family 
across the waters, and landed them on Ararat. 
I look upon the ark of Noah in no respect as 
the type and the symbol of the Saviour. I pre- 
fer much to regard it as the type and symbol 
of the catholic church of the Lord Jesus 



HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP. 



339 



Christ. I mean by that church, not any visible 
communion upon earth, but the company of all 
redeemed and true believers. In other words, 
I look upon it as the symbol of the true church, 
which we estimate not by the size of its cathe- 
drals, or the height of its spires, or the number 
of its baptisms : but by its likeness to God, and 
conformity to the image of Jesus. Hence I 
have always felt it an insuperable objection to 
the Tractarian divines, that they are so very 
low churchmen ; we are rightly and properly 
the true high churchmen. Dr. Watts shows, in 
many of his hymns, that he was a far higher 
churchman than Mr. Keble or Mr. "Williams, 
who sing the glories and the excellencies of 
what they call the church. The church of the 
Tractarian is a church limited by the height of 
the spire of the cathedral : the church of the 
Christian is a church which stretches beyond 
the stars. Their church is one which includes 
Italy and Austria, and excludes Scotland and 
Holland, and a large portion of America : our 
church is one which includes people of every 
kindred and tongue and people and nation, whose 
towers stretch beyond the firmament, and repose 
amid the effulgence of the presence of God. 
z 2 



840 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



Dr. Watts shows himself, Congregationalist as 
he was, to have been a true churchman, when 
he sings : 

" I love thy kingdom, Lord, 
The house of thine abode, 
The church our bless'd Redeemer bought 
With his own precious blood. 

" I love thy church, O God ; 
Her walls before thee stand, 
Dear as the apple of thine eye, 
And graven on thy hand. 

" Beyond my highest joys 
I prize her heavenly ways — 
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 
Her hymns of love and praise." 

We cannot feel our idea of the church satisfied 
with any visible Christian institution upon earth. 
All visible churches are provisional, not perfect. 
Our churchmanship rises far above popes, and 
prelates, and presbyters, — we can find the great 
idea defined only in the word of God, and the 
lofty and glorious reality embodied in the pre- 
sence of the throne of God himself. Hence I 
have thought, that even one single sound from 
David's lyre, although that sound comes through 
the rugged Scottish version — 

" Upon the hills of holiness 
God his foundation sets ; 



HIGH CHTTRCHMANSHIP. 



341 



God more tlian Jacob's dwellings all 
Delights in Zion's gates — 

has more true cliurchmanship than all Mr. 
Keble's drivelling poetry about "holy mother." 
We are churchmen — high churchmen : the 
Tractarians are mere schismatics and dissent- 
ers, setting up a human altar against the Di- 
vine one. 

Into this ark we invite all, as Xoah invited the 
antediluvians into his. To come by baptism into 
the visible church is unquestionably a duty : 
but to invite you to come into this national or 
that national, or this Congregational or that 
TTesleyan, communion, is not necessarily to in- 
vite you into this ark. Our invitation is to come 
into that true church, members of which are in 
every communion upon earth ; the head of which 
is Christ ; the bonds, the ties, the links of which 
are ties of living and imperishable love : the 
safety of which is guaranteed by the oath and 
made real by the overshadowing attributes of 
Deity ; and the end and the destiny of which is 
so sure that no convulsion can arrest it, no 
change retard it. This church must last and 
live, whilst there is a God to be worshipped, 
throughout the ages of eternity. 



84:2 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

The ark which Noah built after the prescrip- 
tion of God, had but one door in it ; and Noah 
stood at that door, and invited all that would to 
come in. What is that door ? It is not baptism ; 
that cannot be proved. It is not any right pre- 
scription or position in this world ; that cannot 
be shown. But we have One proclaiming him- 
self to be the only door to the sheepfold — the 
only avenue of access to the number of the 
saved : " I am the door ; whoso entereth by me 
shall find pasture." Hence the title of admis- 
sion into this true church of the redeemed is 
not any visible ceremony ; nor is it any earthly 
name 3 however valued, esteemed, and cherished 
it may be ; nor is it in the power of any priest, 
nor is it in virtue of any rite ; it is simply the 
reception of ; or belief in, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
as God's way to us, and our way exclusively 
to him ; — and that minister of the gospel who 
cannot point out this door without obstructing 
and narrowing it, or who cannot stand before 
it and invite the people in without casting his 
own shadow on it, is not true to all the require- 
ments and responsibilities of his office ; and that 
sermon, therefore, seems to me the most usefuL 
not which pleases the ear with its music, but 



HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP. 



343 



which casts the greatest light and the least sha- 
dow upon Christ, the only door of access to the 
company of the saved. 

This ark, constructed after the prescription of 
God, had not only a door, but also " a window 
and it is remarkable that it had but one window 
— for God himself said, " A window shalt thou 
make in it;" and the height and breadth of 
that window God himself laid down. Now 
what a window is to that ark, it is not surely 
straining our interpretation if I presume, the 
ministry and sacraments and ordinances of the 
church are to the church. What was the best 
window that Noah could have had in the ark ? 
Surely not the most beautiful one — not the one 
that was most richly and most exquisitely 
stained ; but the window that would subserve 
the great purposes which he had in view, that 
which admitted with the least obstruction the 
light of heaven to the inmates. It is so with 
the ministry and the ordinances of the church 
of Christ. That is the best ministry which is 
the purest medium of light ; the best light is 
not the " dim religious," but the bright reli- 
gious light ; and those sacraments seem to me 
the most scriptural and the most apostolical, 



344 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

which are administered, so as not to take the 
place of Christ, and dislodge him, but to be the 
transparent and lucid media through which the 
beams of heaven dawn upon the earth, and the 
light of God's truth finds the most ready access 
into the depths of man's heart. 

While the ark had its door and its window, it 
had in it also several compartments ; these com- 
partments were divided by partitions. Is there 
not in this something like a symbol — if not a 
description — of the state of Christ's church? 
Those true believers who compose it may be 
found in every communion ; and each has a pre- 
ference, it may be, distinct from his brother's. 
These distinctions may be sinful — but they are 
facts; these differences maybe expedient, or they 
may not ; they may be necessary and unavoid- 
able, or they may be criminal ; but here they are. 
Men do not yet see eye to eye ; whether they 
shall ever see all things exactly the same, is a 
question I cannot answer ; but here there is a 
palpable fact, that if there were different cham- 
bers in the ark, there was but one door of access 
to all, and one window to give light to them all. 
May it not be so in Christ's church ? — nay, it is 
so, — whatever be the Christian party, or deno- 



HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP. 



345 



mination (and one compartment may be ampler 
and brighter than another) to which you belong, 
there is but one door of admission to the true 
church ; there is but one window to let light into 
it ; and that sect seems to me to depart farthest 
from the gospel, that says, " You shall not be- 
long to us, unless you first enter through Cran- 
mer, or Wesley, or Knox, and then through 
Christ ; " while that church seems to me to ap- 
proach nearest to the apostolic model, that pro- 
claims and writes, as it w€re, on its very thresh- 
old — " There is nothing requisite for your 
admission, but your sense of your peril without, 
and your desire to be saved solely through His 
precious blood." 

In this ark the three great fathers of the hu- 
man family met together : Shem, the great father 
of Asia, Japhet of Europe, and Ham of Africa, 
— America being made up of sections taken from 
each. How delightful the anticipation, that 
their children shall meet again in Christ, their 
common Saviour, and in the true ark, their com- 
mon church ! and how earnestly should we en- 
deavour to approximate to this predestined state 
in all our arrangements upon earth ! How very 
unlike this is a portion of the church in the 



346 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Southern States of America, where the black 
man, because he has got a darker shade upon 
his face, is not allowed to approach the same 
table or sit in the same pew with the white man! 

All within the ark, and they alone, were 
saved. No doubt there were stronger ships 
built than Noah's, and yet they all perished. 
Tested by strict mathematical, or hydrostatic, or 
hydraulic principles, the ark was a very de- 
fective vessel ; I have no doubt scientific men 
prophesied that it would founder in the first 
wave that rose ; and I dare say that when 
Noah entered the ark, without any knowledge 
of the stars, and without any chart or compass, 
or means of navigating it, they predicted that if 
his prophecy became true, and the Flood came, 
those magnificent war vessels would float un- 
scathed to the remotest shores, and that the 
miserable shell which Noah called the ark would 
perish in the first gale. But the mightiest navies 
foundered before the overwhelming Flood ; and 
the very shell constructed by Noah, who was 
neither shipwright nor carpenter, survived ; — 
teaching us the lesson, that the element of safety 
is not the strength of human institutions, but the 
presence and blessing of God upon the weakest. 



HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP. 



347 



Kings and nobles, the highest, the greatest, 
the richest, all that were outside the ark, 
perished ! they only inside were safe. And so 
it must be still. The church that is to last for 
ever is not the most gorgeous in its forms, or 
the richest in its possessions ; and they that trust 
to the antiquity, or the greatness, or the learn- 
ing, or the resources of the church, as the great 
means of their safety in the approaching storms, 
imitate the conduct of those who trusted to their 
war-ships, and rejected the safety provided in 
the ark of Noah. Our safety is not in our be- 
longing to a church the most apostolic, nor is it 
in our being baptized after a formula the most 
scriptural ; the only church, to belong to which 
is to be a churchman indeed, and a Christian 
too, is that composed of those who have " wash- 
ed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb," and have fled to Christ, 
as the only safety and refuge of sinners. 

Many assisted in building the ark of Noah 
who perished themselves. It is not likely that 
Noah could have built the whole ark in the time 
prescribed. It is found by calculation, that 
Noah's ark, by measurement, would be as large 
as several, I believe, of the largest ships of war, 



848 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and able to carry as much as twenty war-ships, 
guns, crews, and all. It is not likely, therefore, 
that Noah could have built it all himself. I 
have no doubt that he was- assisted by numbers, 
for the pay they received, not because of any 
sympathy they felt. Many of the shibboleths 
that are sounded loudest in the age in which we 
live, do not come from zeal for the cause of 
Christ, but from zeal for men's own advantage. 
Every time we hear, 66 The church, the church 
of the Lord are we," or every time we hear, 
" The church is in danger," or " The chapel is 
in peril," we cannot believe that these always 
proceed from the purest and the loftiest motives. 
Many side with the church, on the one hand, or 
with dissent, upon the other, not from heartfelt 
preference, but from expediency and meaner 
ends. And it is to be feared very many may 
assist in extending the cause of Christ on the 
earth, who shall not be saved by it. It is a very 
solemn thing, that there will be ministers who 
shall form and build up churches for eternity, 
who shall perish themselves ; that many shall 
contribute to raise schools, and to circulate 
Bibles, and to extend missions, out of benevo- 
lent motives — not out of Christian ones, who 



HIGH CHT7K.CHM ANSHIP . 



349 



are not Christians themselves. WTien we give 
to the cause of Christy let us always precede that 
gift by this first and chiefest question, " Do I 
belong to Christ myself? Am I a Christian my- 
self?" He only who is a Christian can give 
truly to the extension of Christ's cause ; and the 
little that he gives, being the most that he can 
spare, will be blessed by Him who gave him 
grace to do so. 

The same wave which raised the ark of Noah 
to the sky, overwhelmed the towers and the 
citadels of the earth. The same gospel that is 
H a savour of life unto life "to many, is (C the 
savour of death unto death " to others. It is a 
great law in God's providence, just as it is a law 
in God's grace, that what is death to the unbe- 
liever is salvation to the child of God ; the same 
sermon that carries quickening hopes into one 
heart, carries a hardening process into a second ; 
the same tribulation that is sanctified to one man, 
hardens a second ; for the same wave that car- 
ried Noah nearer to his God, overwhelmed those 
that were without the ark in irresistible destruc- 
tion ; the same lightning flash that rent the 
rocks and citadels of the world, only shone upon 
the surging waters before Noah, and illuminated 



350 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

his troubled pathway, till he rested finally upon 
Ararat. Let us, then, pray that the gospel we 
hear may be made a blessing to us, not a cala- 
mity — that the truth we know may be the means 
of our acquittal, not the cause of our condemna- 
tion, at the judgment-seat of Christ. 

We and our children are invited, just as Noah 
and his children, and all his family, were invited 
into the ark. 

There is nothing to be done now, but simply to 
accept what has been done for us. The great 
misapprehension of many is, that they have 
something to do, or something to suffer, before 
they can be justified. Now the revelation of 
the gospel of Christ is, that all has been done 
that God required to be done, all suffered 
that the law demanded to be suffered, and that 
now we have only to repose upon that sacrifice, 
and receive that righteousness, and be ever- 
lastingly saved ; what we are called upon to do, 
is just what Noah was called upon to do — to 
bring not only ourselves, but our children, to 
Christ, and just as they are. 

Has any one a prodigal son ? Bring him upon 
your prayers to a throne of grace ; beseech Him 
in whose hands are all hearts, to change that 



HIGH CHTJBCHMANSHIP. 



351 



heart ; and that prodigal will yet gratify your 
spirits, by presenting the spectacle of one pros- 
trate at his Father's footstool, and that Father 
falling on his neck,, and kissing him, and bid- 
ding him welcome home. Have you infants ? 
Bring them into the ark also : let these flowers 
be presented before " the Sun of righteousness :* ; 
let these babes be dedicated to Christ, and be 
taught to feel that their' safety is to be within 
the ark — their peril to be out of it. 

There is no safety for us or for our children 
anywhere but in the true church of the re- 
deemed, that is. washed in the blood and arrayed 
in the righteousness of Jesus. This one thought 
should absorb or annihilate every other con- 
sideration. Be not anxious so much whether 
your offspring shall be churchmen or dissenters, 
as whether they shall be Christians. Bring them 
first to Christ, and then they will not go to a 
wrong church : make them first acquainted with 
the excellencies of the Saviour, and then they 
will prefer the communion that reflects his glory 
most brightly, and makes known his gospel most 
faithfully ; carry your children first to the ark. 
and then let them determine at their leisure in 
which chamber or partition of the ark they shall 



852 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

prefer permanently to dwells — recollecting that 
if we are in the true ark, there is but one door 
for admission, but one window to enlighten us, 
as there is but one God to protect us, and one 
mountain, more glorious than Ararat, on which 
we shall rest and dwell for ever. 

But it may be asked, "What is to become of 
those children who are not so privileged as 
Noah's, in having a father to bring them to 
Christ, or into the true ark ? " In such a case 
a Christian church is the sponsor for these out- 
cast ones. The duty — nay, not the duty, but 
the privilege — devolves upon us of "suffering 
such little ones to come to Jesus." Those chil- 
dren that wander in our streets, who are our 
future housebreakers, the inmates of our prisons 
for the next twenty years, and the exiles to 
Botany Bay, are not poisonous weeds — they are 
only soiled and trampled flowers ; we need only 
to gather them up, to bring them beneath the 
beams of the everlasting Sun, and under the 
rains of the sky, and they will bloom and beau- 
tify the land which they now threaten to dis- 
credit or destroy. 

To these children we must give not merely 
a secular education, but also, and emphatically, a 



HIGH CHURCHMAKSH1F. 



religious education. Secular education without 
scriptural is giving power, but adding no prin- 
ciple to regulate that power : it is like building 
ships of the most approved construction, but 
forgetting or neglecting to put on board a com- 
pass and a chart, and to append to each ship a 
helm ; and then letting these vessels float upon 
the ocean, where they must founder in the first 
hurricane. We teach the young secular know- 
ledge, because it is useful, important, nay, ne- 
cessary to do so ; but we teach them, contem- 
poraneously, the knowledge of God and Christ 
Jesus, which not only beautifies and regulates 
the other, but " opens 55 for them " the kingdom 
of heaven," as "for all believers." 

Some, notwithstanding, are advocates for teach- 
ing secular knowledge only. I have always felt 
great pity for the schoolmaster who is placed in 
a school and told — 66 Now teach everything 
upon earth, but do not meddle with religion;" 
and I have often thought of the difficulties in 
which he must be placed. Suppose the master, 
for instance, is explaining botany to his school. 
He selects a rose, and begins to tell the children 
that it belongs to such a class, or to such a 
genus, and has such a property — such fragrance, 
2 A 



354 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

such virtues ; he then begins to tell them that it 
is a favourite symbol with poets, and adds also 
that it is associated with the history of England 
— the white and red roses of the houses of York 
and Lancaster ; he then begins to tell them that 
it is used also in a book called the Bible, and in 
that book it describes the excellency of the 
Lord Jesus Christ as the Rose of Sharon. Up 
starts one of the boys — " Hold, sir ; I am a 
Jew ; I do not believe in such a Saviour, and I 
cannot admit of such an application." Or I 
can imagine him describing the origin of books 
— what they were made of — first leaves, next 
parchment on a roller; and then he begins to 
tell his scholars that the Bible is so called as 
being The Book, the best book in the world. 
Up starts a sceptic child — " My father does not 
believe the Bible, and I do not believe it ; you 
are violating the rules of the school." Now, I 
ask, must not such a teacher be placed in a very 
awkward situation? He may speak of every 
book, from the book of Jasher down to the 
books of Mormon, — but he must not speak one 
word concerning the Bible ; he may mention 
every illustrious person, from Noah down to 
Napoleon, — but he dare not speak of Him who 



HIGH CHURCHMANSHIP. 



355 



hallowed the very universe with his glory — 
the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is diffi- 
cult to conceive secular education conveyed in 
schools separate from religious education. I 
do not wish the mere sectarianism of religion to 
be taught ; let the Bible be the school-book, 
and I am satisfied ; let the Bible be the great 
Directory in the school, and it seems to me to 
be enough. 

We are not against teaching secular know- 
ledge. Far from it. Many persons err in this 
respect. They teach their children the way to 
heaven, but do not teach them the duties and 
responsibilities of earth. Many parents educate 
their children as if they had nothing to do with 
the world, but to get over it like skaters upon 
thin ice, as rapidly as they can, in order to be 
sure at length to be in heaven. Now it seems 
to me, that we must educate our children for 
this world, as w^ell as for heaven; not for the 
adoption of the world's maxims, or for the 
imitation of the world's example, but for the 
discharge of the world's duties. We must teach 
our children, by all means, to pray, to read, to 
come to the house of God, to visit the throne of 
grace ; and fit them, by the grace of God, for 
2 a 2 



858 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the house of God in glory ; — but we must also 
prepare them for the counter, and for the ex- 
change, and for the army, and for the navy, — 
for they have to fulfil responsibilities in the 
world, as well as to prepare for heaven ; they 
have duties to discharge to Csesar, as well as 
privileges to receive from Christ. The child 
that gets a wrong view of the world, is as likely 
to make shipwreck as the child that receives a 
wrong view of heaven. The world is the great 
battle-field, on which the conflict is to be sus- 
tained: the shop, the exchange, the army, the 
navy, the parliament, are the places where our 
character is to be tested ; and unless we are 
made acquainted with all that is before us in the 
world, and all that we are to do and dare and 
conquer, we have not that " faith " which 
" overcomes the world," and which is made per- 
fect in fruition. Therefore we wish to teach both 
knowledges combined, because we believe both 
to be necessary. 

There are but two modes of treatment of the 
rising generation — namely, the prevention of 
the crime or the punishment of the criminal. 
One or other we must adopt. Surely it is painful 
to see children before a magistrate, at the police 



HIGH CHURCHMANSH1P. 



857 



offices , who were really never taught the vast 
distinctions between vice and virtue, between 
holiness and sin, but have been allowed to grow 
up in the belief, that it is their duty to enrich 
themselves at their neighbours' expense ; and 
then they are punished for principles which 
have been ingrafted on their earliest recollec- 
tions, and which have been taught them beneath 
the shelter and authority of a mother's home. 
We ought to prevent the growth of the juvenile 
criminal, rather than punish the full-grown and 
matured criminal ; we ought to exercise the 
privilege of prevention rather than the stern 
duty of punishment ; and in doing so we should 
not only fall in with the prescriptions of the 
gospel more fully, but we should leave upon 
society an impression more permanent and more 
valuable. It would be more economical to do 
so. We pay so much for poor's rates, and police 
tax, and for gaols, just because we feel so little 
interest and do so little for the instruction of the 
rising race. If the schoolmaster do not lay 
hold of that poor child in St. Giles's, a police- 
man will lay hold of him ; if we do not place 
him in a Christian school, we shall find him in 
1ST ewgate ; if we were to give more for the main- 



S58 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tenance of Christian schools, we should be taxed 
much less for gaols, and all the punitive appa- 
ratus with which our country is furnished. 

Where is property most valuable because 
most safe ? Where should we prefer to leave 
an estate for the maintenance of our children ? 
Would it not be in this country ? How much 
was Lot's house worth in Sodom, into which the 
rabble were ready to burst every moment ? 
How much was property worth in France, at 
the time of the Revolution ? How comes it to 
pass that the barren acres of Scotland will fetch 
more than the fertile fields of Mahometan Tur- 
key ? The answer is, because Christian educa- 
tion has made a visible impression upon the one, 
while the other is completely overrun with ig- 
norance and superstition. But I will not dwell 
upon such grounds : I put the matter upon the 
highest ground of all. Train children for 
Christ ; prepare their hearts for immortality and 
glory ; transplant them from a soil in which 
they wither, to a soil in which they will grow 
and prosper. Bring them from the waters of 
the swelling flood into communion with the 
people of God 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ARARAT I OR, THE FIRST MORNING OF A 
NEW DAY. 

" The -wave is breaking on the shore, 

The echo fading from the chime, 
Again the shadow moveth o'er 

The dial-plate of time. 

" Oh ! in that dying year hath been 

The sum of all since time began ; 
The birth and death, the joy ana pain, 

Of nature and of man." 

" And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord ; and took of every clean 
beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.'' 
—Gen. viii. 20. 

Noah, a member of the Church before the 
Flood, commemorated the past and commenced 
the future by a religious act. He owned 
God in the end, as he had owned him in the 
beginning of his peculiar, and, as he thought 
at first, his perilous career. God with Noah 
was not a mere speculative idea that floated in 
his head, but an ever present, ever plastic, ever 
consolatory conviction ; he began his voyage 
with God, he ended it in worship and adoration 
to God. 



380 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

As Noah ended one world and began another, 
we should end one year and begin the next. A 
year is the epitome of an age ; an age is the ex- 
pansion of a year ; and both ought to be made 
by us, as they were meant to be by Him who 
created them, subservient to the highest, the 
holiest, and the most beneficent of ends. End, 
therefore, each year, and begin its successor, as 
you would wish to end this life, and to Jbegin 
the next. Let the last notes of praise in 1852 
mingle with the first notes of prayer for 1853. 
Let us close great epochs as we would wish to 
close the grand epoch. Time is the porch of 
eternity, — the pathway to a crown of glory, or 
to an heirdom of misery and sorrow and grief. 
He must be blind indeed, who has not seen God's 
hand sweep along the currents of the year 
that is gone ; and he must be deaf indeed, who 
has not heard his voice upon the right and upon 
the left, saying, " This is the way, walk ye in 
it ; 55 and he must be insensible and hardened 
indeed, who, having closed one year without 
God, can risk, or dare, or venture to commence 
and continue its successor in defiance of God. 
Beautifully, then, did Noah close the world that 
passed away with solemn worship; most ap- 



ARARAT. 



361 



propriately did lie commence an unsounded 
world, into whose ups and downs, and heights 
and depths, his weary feet were soon to go, by 
seeking Him to be with him in the future, light- 
ing it up with the love which had been with 
him in the past, superintending him by his 
paternal and benevolent care. 

But, in looking at this act of Noah, which 
closed one epoch and commenced another, let us 
try to ascertain what was the first feeling that 
it expressed. No doubt it was thansgiving^ 
adoration, and praise. Ararat was to Noah a 
standing monument that God's overshadowing 
wings had been over him upon the stormy deep, 
that God's fatherly eye had been fastened upon 
these little, often doubting, but still safe voyagers ! 
And as he thousrht that the same Flood that was 

o 

the grave of a vast world, was the preservation 
of his little family ; surely it became him, it was 
worthy of him as a Christian, for such he was, 
to offer thanksgiving and praise to Him who had 
kept his eyes from tears, his ark from founder- 
ing, and placed him on Ararat, a monument of 
preserving goodness. New-year's day is the 
Ararat of Christians still. It is that day on 
which we stand and look back on all the way 



362 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

that God has guided us ; and from whose sum- 
mit, as it were, we may look forward ; and if we 
have fears, and faintings, and dim and sad pro- 
spects, we need have no misgivings ; because 
1853 is as naked before our God as 1852, and 
he that poured the one from his hand, and has 
taken it again to himself, is pouring forth the 
other for us, to carry us a stage nearer to him- 
self. And as we look back from each Ararat, 
the first day of a new year, upon the past, we 
can see rocks as Noah did, and debris and frag- 
ments of barks and disorganized things ; but we 
can see what Noah also saw, the green grass 
that begins again to grow, and the ycung flowers 
that begin again to bloom ; and around its aw- 
ful brow, girdling it with fresh glory and grand 
riches, the rainbow, the memorial of a God at 
peace with mankind, and mankind accepted and 
blessed in covenant with him. Have we, then, 
standing where we now are, no mercies, like 
Noah, to commemorate? Have we no God to 
praise for the past? have we no Ararat that 
prompts that praise? If we are this day in 
health, and some in prosperity, and all in safety, 
to whom do we give the praise ? Do we praise 
the ship that carried us, the skill of the crew 



ARARAT. 363 

that manned it, the winds and the waves, as the 
heathen do ? or do we praise the love and faith- 
fulness of that God who controls the archangel 
that is next his throne, and takes care of the 
meanest reptile that w^as admitted into the ark, 
as Christians should ? Let God have all the 
praise for the last year, let him have our hearts' 
complete confidence for the coming one. I say, 
like Noah, we may have much to deplore in the 
past, and much that we could wish were not 
swept away by the past ; but we have never 
been deserted by Him who remembered Noah, 
and has always remembered us. As with Noah, 
many a fair possession may have been swept 
away by the waves of 1852 ; like Noah, we may 
have to deplore many a green field laid below 
its flood, many a fair fabric shattered by its 
throes ; like Noah, we may have to weep for 
many a near and dear one snatched away, and 
buried beneath the floods of the past ; though 
we can cherish, what he could not perhaps con- 
cerning many he knew, the hopes of a sure and 
a certain resurrection. We may have to deplore 
many bright lights that once gladdened the ho- 
rizon now quenched and extinguished for ever ; 
we may have to lament gaps in our homes, va- 



384 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

cancies in the circle of our friends, heavier 
hearts as the years put upon them their increas- 
ing load ; but still, if we be under the oversha- 
dowing wings of God, the wave that has swept 
away what we most loved, has only carried us, 
as it bore Noah, nearer to the God that took 
them. And every shock that we have felt has 
been paternal,— it was the wave, not the rock, — 
and every anxiety we have felt has been un- 
founded, and every dispensation has been mercy. 
And who does not feel, that our most anxious 
moments have been our most sanctifying mo- 
ments ? so that each can say, in his sober and 
solemn moments, that affliction was bitter in- 
deed while it was borne, but it was good for me 
nevertheless that I was afflicted ; and though 
no tribulation for the present seemeth joyous, 
yet it has been working out the peaceable 
fruits of righteousness, unto us .who have been 
exercised thereby. And have we not discovered 
long ago, what we all find sooner or later, and 
what we are so reluctant to believe until we do 
find it, that ail things work for good to them 
who love God? I believe that if every true 
Christian were to speak his mind, he would say, 
in taking a retrospect of the past, There is 



ARARAT. 



365 



not one thing that has occurred in it, however 
bitter it tasted at the moment, however painfully 
I felt it, however much I repine d, I would wish 
to be left out of my lot ; or one single thing to 
be reversed in the way of suffering or bereave- 
ment, of losses or crosses, in God's good provi- 
dence. And what is this, but the human heart 
uttering the testimony from its silent and its 
solemn depths, that " all things work together 
for good to them that love God, and are the 
called according to his purpose;" and when 
we said, all these things are against us, as 
thought the patriarch who first uttered it, we 
little knew all these things were working di- 
rectly for us. 

We have thus looked at Noah's offering, clos- 
ing a world that was gone, and commencing a 
world that has come, as eucharistic or thanks- 
giving offering. But it w T as more than this. If 
it had been merely a thanksgiving offering, he 
would have taken of the fruits and the flowers of 
the earth, and offered them to God ; but he took 
of every clean beast, and offered it to God, and 
that was an evidence that it was an expiatory or 
atoning sacrifice. And did Noah need such ? 
Do we need it ? That is the right way to put 



386 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



the question, and if our own hearts condemn us, 
God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all 
things. Noah recollected sins in the past, mis- 
givings in the present ; many a fear that he had 
entertained, many a doubt that he had spiritually 
felt. He recollected how often he had said in 
his heart, when some huge billow swept past, or 
some great wave made his frail bark vibrate with 
its shock, or reel and stagger, as if his vessel 
had lost its way on the deep, God hath forsaken 
me, and my God hath forgotten me; and like 
the Israelites in another case, It had been better 
for me and mine, that we had perished with 
the rest of the antediluvians in the Flood, than 
to be thus subjected to fears and fightings with- 
out, and only to perish in the end. When he 
stood on Ararat, and recollected all his doubts 
of God, his sad misgivings, his dark suspi- 
cions, all his fears, his first feeling was, I need 
the cleansing of a blood that will cleanse from 
all sin ; I need to flee to an atonement in which 
alone there can be forgiveness for the past, and 
through which alone I can have strength, and 
peace, and confidence for the future. When 
we look back upon the year that has passed 
away, have we not similar recollections ? I do 



ARARAT. 



367 



believe, that not the least sin that Christians 
commit is that of suspecting God. The last 
thing that we let go — it is very strange indeed, 
but it is so — after grace has changed the heart, 
is that innate suspicion of God, which is just 
the projected shadow of Adam's falling from 
God, and repeating itself among the traces of 
the primal ruin, in the 19th century, in the 
hearts of mankind. We go too often to the 
throne of grace, as to that of an avenging Being, 
whose wrath we h^ve to deprecate ; we go to a 
communion table with fears, and doubtings, 
and misgivings, feeling that it is a very awful 
and terrible thing ; and we listen to the gospel 
as if it were a dreadful knell ; so much so, 
that in our counting-houses, in our shops, in 
our various professions, the idea of God com- 
ing vividly before us would be felt by many to 
be a very intrusive thing. Now I ought to feel, 
when about my business, as I should when I 
am praying, or preaching, or reading. The 
service of God is not simply prayer, praise, 
reading. These are the nutriment of what con- 
stitutes the service of God. The service of 
God is behind the counter, in the warehouses, 
in the parliament, in the law courts. There 



368 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

man is to show himself the servant of God ; 
and in the sanctuary he obtains and gathers that 
manna on the one day of the week, which forms 
strength and nutriment to him during all the 
days that follow. But is not our idea of God 
too often that of dread? Are not our feelings 
towards him oft those of suspicion? and when 
we find things turn out better than we expected, 
when we find that what we feared in criminal 
distrust comes to be the greatest mercy that 
dawned upon us, we are justly ashamed, for 
never do we see the shadows of sin so sharp 
and clear in their outlines, as when they are 
seen in the light of unmerited and unexpected 
goodness. It is when we stand on the Ararat 
where God's goodness has placed us, that we see 
how sinful were our past misgivings, how griev- 
ous were our short-comings. A man never re- 
pents most heartily, until he repents of sin, 
amidst the enjoyment of unexpected mercy. 
Man will not repent aright on Mount Gerizim, 
he will not repent heartily on Mount Ebal ; but 
when he kneels on Calvary, and sees his sin 
in the light of God's transcendent benevolence 
and love, he looks up, and, like Peter, goes 
forth and weeps bitterly. Many a time, during 



ARARAT. 369 

the year that has passed away, have we mis- 
trusted God. Something happened to you — 
you put a bad construction upon it. Some un- 
expected dispensation overtook you — you in- 
stinctively said, This is wrath, not mercy. Some 
trial you were perhaps placed in, and during it 
you had recourse to everything and anything, 
and anybody, except God. 

We must say of 1852, " We have left undone 
what we ought to have done, and we have done 
what we ought not to have done, and there is 
no health in us. Enter not into judgment, O 
Lord, with thy servants ; for in thy sight no 
man living can be justified. But there is forgive- 
ness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." 
There is pardon for the past, complete, entire, 
irreversible ; there is peace and hope for the fu- 
ture, because thou art the same yesterday, to- 
day, and for ever. 

We have shown, that Xoah's sacrifice was 
not simply eucharistic, but expiatory, "With- 
out shedding of blood there is no remission 
of sin." Far more privileged are we than 
Xoah; he had his sacrifice to slay, we have 
our sacrifice already slain ; he had to make 
atonement, through which he looked for for-. 

2 T? 



370 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

giveness ; we have only to accept an atonement 
already perfect and complete. In other words, 
Noah had to prepare his sacrifice ; we have to 
thank God for one prepared ; and to hear, echo- 
ing along the centuries, incapable of being spent 
or silenced, those grand words with which the 
great sacrifice closed, 66 It is finished. 5 ' And 
if we have a sacrifice near to every one ; if it 
costs us nothing, is accessible to all, available to 
us ; it will be much more criminal, if, on this, the 
Ararat between the years, as Noah's was be- 
tween the worlds, we do not have recourse to 
that only sacrifice, and seek forgiveness for the 
past, and guidance for the future. Let Christ, 
the Altar, be our Ararat for 1853 ; let his 
atonement be our plea ; let his mercies be our 
trust ; and let his all-prevailing intercession be 
the smoke and the incense of that sacrifice, ever 
available for us, and even for the chiefest of sin- 
ners. We rest every Christmas between the 
years ; let us pray that the past, which cannot 
be recalled, may be pardoned ; and the future, 
which is yet pure, innocent, and unstained, may 
be charged by us, through God's grace, with a 
mission that shall bless mankind, and give glory 
to Him who is our dwelling-place in all genera- 



ARARAT. 



371 



tions. Let us enter on each coming year, as Noah 
entered on his new world, with praise for the 
past, and prayer for pardon ; confidence for the 
future, and close walking with God. 1853 has 
just emerged from the waters of past years, yet 
beautiful, ruddy, and like a giant, ready to run 
its race. Let us approach it from the altar, let 
us enter on it by a new and a living way. Let 
us walk along its channels with God, as Noah 
walked ; and at its close, if it close upon us, we 
shall have, like Noah, to praise and thank Him 
who has kept us throughout. What shall be the 
character of the year that comes ? We cannot de- 
termine. No horoscope of man's can cast it ; no 
penetration of political sagacity can ascend it ; 
what new features it will develope, what strange 
and mysterious currents will rush along its bed, 
what cataracts and convulsions will take place 
before it is closed, whither it will bear hu- 
manity, to what destiny it shall carry the ark 
of God, we know not ; God only knows. But 
let us enter on it, trusting on the God who is in 
it ; let us, in the language of the apostle, to vary 
the figure which I have employed, "let us 
run with patience the race that is set before us ; 
looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of 
2 b 2 



872 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

our faith ; who, for the joy that was set before 
him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and 
is set down at the right hand of the throne of 
God." And we are perfectly sure, come storm, 
come tempest, come convulsion, come the dis- 
location of all things, come war, come invasion, 
come rebellion, come what may, a Christian is 
just as safe as Noah was in the ark—" Nothing 
shall separate us from the love of God, that is 
in Jesus Christ our Lord." But whilst we have 
the consciousness of this safety, let us look to 
the coming year as suggesting to us grave re- 
sponsibilities. The evening twilight of 1852 is 
now mingling with the morning twilight of 1853. 
The waters of the past and the waters of the 
future, the former to their resting-place, the 
latter to their origin, meet together where we 
now are. The old year has laid down its bur- 
den at God's throne, and the new year has come 
to occupy its place. Let us, then, look at the 
coming year as a scene of duty, as an oppor- 
tunity of privilege, a series of responsibilities, 
which never, never can be exhausted. Seize 
the golden seconds ; moments now may be the 
fathers of an endless eternity. The year that is 
coming may be the fulcrum on which everlast- 



ARARAT. 



ing joy or everlasting sorrow vibrates, in refer- 
ence to some one whose heart now bounds, and 
who looks and feels as healthy as the healthiest 
among mankind. This year may be to us 
the full tide ; — lose it, and you are lost for 
ever. It may be the seed-time of eternity ; — miss 
it, and the harvest comes, and there are only 
thorns to gather, instead of golden wheat. 
While a sense of past sin, therefore, humbles 
us, while a sense of the vanity of the past sad- 
dens us, let us take courage for the future ; and, 
in God's strength, and guided by God's word, 
enter upon it, to meet its doubts, and to avail 
ourselves of its privileges ; and then to live will 
be Christ, and to die will be great gain. And 
what a solemn thought is this, now we have been 
spared during one year, that the present may be 
our last. What a very solemn thought ; we 
may have entered on a year, the close of 
which we shall not see. It has now opened 
upon us joyously; it has dawned upon our 
firesides, upon our homes ; on our palaces, 
on our counting-houses, on our various duties, 
excitements, responsibilities ; but how it shall 
close, God only knows. Its current may be 
carrying soon the dead dust of some one to its 



374 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

resting-place, and the quickened soul of some 
one to the judgment-seat of God. Can we 
avert its worst issues ? In God's strength, be- 
cause invited by God's word, we can ; and there- 
fore we may now determine, that this year shall 
close upon us in benedictions ; and that, whether 
we shall see it end below, as hearers in the sanc- 
tuary upon earth, or whether we shall find it end 
in eternity, inmates of the world to come, we 
may resolve, by the grace of God, that it shall 
find us, if living, living to Christ, if taken away, 
found in him, not having our own righteous- 
ness, but his, and standing amid them who have 
washed their robes, and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb. 

While thus we call to mind the goodness of 
the years that are past ; and render to God, to 
whom it is due, a tribute of thanksgiving for 
all the blessings that he has mingled with them, 
let us enter on the coming year, the end of 
which we cannot see, in God's strength ; availing 
ourselves of every privilege, and accepting 
every duty ; running the race set before us, 
looking to Jesus. When Noah looked back 
from Ararat upon the past, no doubt he re- 
joiced that while the Flood swept away much 



ARARAT. 



87 o 



that was so beautiful, and buried in its deep 
waters many that were to him so dear; yet he 
felt that it had not swept away one real, spiritual 
privilege which God had given him. He felt 
still, that his God, his altar, his religion, his 
worship, all were left behind unscathed, as real, 
as available, as when Adam walked in Paradise, 
the unfallen. And cannot we, likewise, say the 
same, amid all the scenes that have passed 
over us during the last four years ? Notwith- 
standing revolutions, counter-revolutions, coups 
d'etat, and the breaking up of kingdoms and 
thrones, and the setting up of presidential 
chairs and empires ; — notwithstanding all that 
has happened in the religious world, all that 
has occurred in the political world ; famine 
and plague, and changes, and judgments, and 
changes, ceaseless, one upon another, like the 
waves of the sea ; yet, how delightful, not one 
privilege of ours has been swept away from us! 
Our Bible remains, the floods have not touched 
it; and no man's shadow, be it the shadow of 
priest or pope, may be cast upon that page 
against my will, when I am called upon by my 
Father to read his message to me. And there 
remains not only our Bible, but, scarcely less 



876 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

precious, our privilege and freedom of worship. 
There are lands on the other side of the sea, where 
the wretched tyranny and despotism of by-gone 
days is scattering the Christian congregations, 
and driving forth from the soil men who have 
the courage to fear God, and who assert their 
right — a right which it is, has been, and will be 
— to worship Him in their own way, in spirit 
and in truth. Many a fair assemblage of Chris- 
tians has been scattered, and many more, from 
what I know, will be scattered, before the year 
is done. But how precious, that the chimes of 
sabbath bells still echo in the ear of England ! 
How delightful it is, what ground for gratitude, 
that we can still, under our own vine and our 
own fig-tree, worship God with none to make 
us afraid. Let us, therefore, grieve less for the 
losses we have sustained, and think more thank- 
fully of the blessings that remain ; and we will 
praise God with, warmer hearts, and a richer 
song, than ever we have praised him before. 
And whatever the floods have swept away, the 
throne of grace still remains. Neither the auto- 
crat on his throne, nor any other power, can 
touch that Divine throne, that remains for ever 
the throne of grace, and at which the humblest 



ARARAT. 



377 



beggar is as welcome with his petition, as the 
greatest monarch that sways the sceptre, or that 
wears a crown. And the Saviour remains, still 
accessible, still beseeching, still pleading. His 
blood has lost nothing of its efficacy ; his love 
has not lost anything of its fervour ; he is now 
ready to receive, to bless, and to make happy, 
me, and you, and all that will humble them- 
selves to bow at his footstool, and take blessings 
without paying for them, without money and 
without price. And the Comforter still remains. 
If comforts have been taken from you, the Com- 
forter remains. If streamlets have dried midst 
summer's heat, or have been frozen by winter's 
cold, the grand and inexhaustible fountain still 
remains. No man can be sad for whom God 
the Comforter still is ; and no man can be really 
happy, to whom the Comforter is a stranger ; 
and he who has this Comforter, in the loss of 
every outward comfort, may say, "Although 
the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit 
be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall 
fail ^ and the fields shall yield no meat ; the flock 
shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be 
no more herd in the stalls ; yet I will rejoice in 
the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." 



378 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Thus while we look back upon each year, that 
like a world has passed away, and while we look 
forward and purpose in reference to each coming 
year, that, like an untrodden world, is yet to 
be, let us learn these plain lessons from all 
we have been speaking of. See the safety of 
the people of God. There is no man who will 
not be rocked, or driven, or overwhelmed by the 
wave, unless he be found in Christ Jesus. And 
what do I mean by this expression ? It is a 
theological expression, some will say ; it means, 
dear reader, that your heart's trust, life, hope, 
aspirations, confidence for the future, and con- 
viction of forgiveness for the past, all rest up- 
on one, and that one the Lamb of God, that 
taketh away the sins of the world. And if you 
are one of his, by being clothed in his right- 
eousness, by being animated by his Holy Spirit, 
showing that this is real, by reflecting his 
character before mankind, then it is true of you, 
that neither life nor death, nor things past, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height nor depth, nor death nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate you from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 



ARARAT. 



379 



Thus the safety of the people of God is contin- 
gent, not upon anything in their life, but simply 
upon this, that they have taken Christ for their 
Saviour, and given themselves to him, as the 
subjects of his salvation. 

Let us rejoice in our sense of safety, such as I 
have now stated, real and well founded indeed ; 
it is not fanaticism, nor enthusiasm, nor delu- 
sion, but a solemn, calm, earnest truth, that 
a man who is a Christian never can perish. " I 
give unto them eternal life, and none shall pluck 
them out of my hand." You may be tossed as 
Noah was, you may have fears, and fightings, 
and misgivings ; but, blessed be God, our safety, 
and the permanence of that safety, is not contin- 
gent upon the strength of our faith, or the pres- 
sure of our fears, but upon the strength of his 
arm that leads us, and upon the surety and 
faithfulness of a promise-keeping and faithful 
God. But, whilst we are thus safe in this con- 
sciousness of shelter, we may, and if Chris- 
tians we must, often long for rest. It was not 
sinful in Noah to say within himself, I wish that 
the fountains of the great deep were shut ; I 
wish that the windows of heaven were closed ; 
I wish that this weary tossing on the sea — and 



380 THE CHUP.CH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

those who have made long voyages by sea know 
its weariness — I wish that this weary tossing on 
the sea, the more weary to me because a lands- 
man, and consequently more unaccustomed to 
it, was ended. That was the natural instinct of 
the human heart, not forbidden or repudiated by 
the regenerated heart : and so we in this world 
may long for deliverance ; there is no sin in 
longing for that day when the groans of crea- 
tion shall cease ; and the great storm-queller 
shall come forth from the holy place and wave 
his hand over all creation, and there shall be a 
great and a lasting calm. I do not say that 
it is natural to long for death; I have often 
felt death is a most unnatural thing ; and I 
cannot believe that any human being longs for 
death ; but what a Christian longs for is, that 
true rest, that perfect sunshine, that complete 
exemption from cares and fears, that perfect 
knowledge of all mysteries, that uninterrupted 
communion with the Fountain of all peace, which 
we know shall be, and for which we are to wait, 
and wait patiently, and be still. While looking 
for it, and anticipating it, we may say, Come, 
Lord Jesus, come quickly ; we may say, Why 
tarry his chariot wheels ? Even the ransomed 



ARARAT. 



381 



saints plead. Lord, Lord, how long ? And we 
too may long and wish for the advent of that 
day, when the Sun of righteousness shall rise 
and shine from his meridian throne. All are 
willing to pass through the valley of the sha- 
dow of death, for the sake of what is beyond it : 
and death, to a Christian, after all is not dying. 
I believe that Christ's death has quite altered 
death in the case of the true believer. The 
Bible speaks of the valley of the shadow of 
death ; there never can be a shadow to an object 
unless there be a strong light upon that object ; 
and the stronger the light upon the object, the 
more strong and dense is its shadow. Xow, 
when we speak of the shadow of death, it 
means death in the light of the Sun of right- 
eousness, and therefore there is a shadow 
but just because there is light. All that re- 
mains is death's shadow; just as the shadow 
of the moon coming between the sun and the 
earth, rests upon us, but the moon itself is 
far distant. So death destroyed, removed, put 
away, has a shadow, to let us know that he is. 
But that shadow is the evidence to us that Christ 
has overcome him, and that we are no more to 
fear him as a formidable and a terrible opponent. 



382 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

And thus we may long for that millennial bliss, 
when all things shall be made new ; and the 
whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, 
waiting to be delivered, shall be restored to its 
pristine harmony ; and the very brutes that now 
quarrel with each other shall lie down in peace 
and quiet among themselves, and in obedi- 
ence to man, into whose hands the reins shall 
be replaced, and the sceptre and the govern- 
ment of this world, all under Christ. 

Let us learn that not only is God within the 
church, keeping all in peace there, but he is 
outside the church, restraining all there ; God 
was not only in Noah's ark, maintaining peace 
within, but God was outside Noah's ark, meting 
out the wind and the storm, and regulating 
all for the safety of that ark. And so now, 
our Father is not only in the church, the 
Lord of the church ; but he is outside the 
church, the Lord of the wind, the storm, and 
hurricane, the revolution, and the tempest ; 
and he will restrain man's wrath, and he will 
make the remainder of that wrath to praise and 
magnify himself. Never, then, let us forget, 
that, while G od is in the midst of us, to bless us 
and to teach us, and to protect us, that he is 



ARARAT. 



383 



outside also ; that lie has not given the world up 
to this or that chance regulation, but that he is 
still superintending it, and causing all things 
outside the ark to keep it on its way, and all 
things to prepare for that grand festival, when 
the marriage of the Lamb shall have come, and 
the bride shall have made herself ready. 

Let us also remember that, as the time draws 
near, God will multiply signs of deliverance. 
The nearer that Xoah was to Ararat, the more 
the signs multiplied that he was so. He sent out 
the raven — it left him. ' He sent out the clove, 
and it returned : and again he sent it out, and it 
returned with an olive branch in its mouth : and 
his mind thus grew in certainty, that the waters 
were subsiding, just in proportion as they sub- 
sided. Even so, as the time of our deliverance 
draws near, God will give signs to his people 
that it is so, in the increased expectancy that 
rises like a sea of peace within them : in the 
joyous hopes that steal like lights into the cham- 
bers of the soul, kindled from heavenly altars ; 
in a sense of communion and reconciliation with 
God ; in the growing intensity of their look- 
ins; for Him who will come the second time 
without sin unto salvation ; and in the consoli- 



884 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

dating spiritual interests, and the marshalling 
separate forces for that great day of trial, which 
the world may laugh at, but which is immis- 
takeably prophesied in his word. And all things 
are mustering — Romanism for its last battle- 
all its scattered powers consolidating ; and 
the true people of God also are concentrating 
their forces — ■ all that love the Lord Jesus 
Christ thinking more of the grand truths on 
which they agree, and thinking less of the minor 
discrepancies about which they differ. And 
when that last conflict comes, — a conflict for 
which it becomes us all to prepare ; every man 
being ready to give a reason for the faith that is 
in him, and willing and waiting to suffer and to 
sacrifice in the defence of that faith, — we know 
what the issue will be ; there, as in every other 
issue, there is no doubt of the ultimate victory. 
There is no risk of the ascendency of falsehood 
and superstition. I believe that real religion, 
where it does not spread visibly to the eye, is 
striking its roots deeper and deeper into the in- 
dividual hearts; the nearer that crisis comes 
which we all anticipate, the more decided will 
men be for God their only ally above, his truth 
their only life below ; and willing, having a mar- 



ARARAT. 



385 



tyr's spirit, to die, if needs be, a martyr's death, 
for Christ's sake. 

In the last place, the ark was not Noah's 
home. It was not his rest. He took it as a tem- 
porary dwelling-place, for a temporary purpose. 
He longed for the rest to which it was to con- 
duct him. This is not our rest — let us never 
imagine, that this world is any more the resting- 
place to us, than the battle field is to the soldier, 
or the deck upon the tempest-tossed sea is 
to the sailor. This is not our rest; we must 
not settle down in it as if it were ; we must 
not work for it as if it were the ultimate and the 
grand thing : we must merely pass through it, 
gathering the incidental flower, while we thank 
the God who gives that flower its beauty and its 
perfume ; but not rest here, as if it were the 
final home of the people of God. Our hearts and 
our trust must be beyond the sky — our home 
is where Christ is, and it will be when Christ 
comes, and no where else. 

As sure as God kept Noah for Ararat, to enter 
upon a world that he had again to water with his 
tears, and to fertilize with the sweat of his brow, 
so sure God will keep us for the better rest, the 
everlasting hills of the heavenly Jerusalem. We 
2 c 



386 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

are kept, says the apostle, by faith unto salva- 
tion, ready to be revealed in the last time ; and 
God's blessing upon the new earth, after its 
baptism by fire, will be a far richer blessing 
than that which was pronounced upon the old 
world after its baptism by water. His former 
blessing was that he would not curse it any 
more, that "seed-time and harvest, and cold 
and heat, and summer and winter, and day 
and night, shall not cease that he would not 
deluge it again with another flood of waters. 
But his blessing upon the new world, which 
comes forth under the new Genesis, is thus un- 
folded : cc I saw no temple therein, the tabernacle 
of God is with man, and he shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no 
more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor shall 
there be any more pain, for the former things 
are passed away." Beautiful prospect ! this life 
of ours is the dream, that future is the reality. 
Let us sit loose to things that perish in the 
using ; let us set our hearts and affections upon 
things that endure for ever and for ever. Ye 
that tremble, " Be still, and know that I am 
God." Take with you into 1853, which may be 
a year of storm, convulsion, cataract, and trouble, 



ARARAT. 



387 



this magnificent hymn, and may the Spirit of God 
help you to realize it : " God is our refuge and 
our strength, a very present help in trouble ; 
therefore will we not fear, though the earth be 
moved, and though the mountains in this year be 
carried into the sea ; though the waters thereof 
should roar and be troubled, though the moun- 
tains shake with the swelling thereof : for there 
is this year, as there has been in past years, a 
river, the streams of which shall make glad the 
city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles 
of the Most High ; God is in the midst of 
her, she shall not be moved ; God shall help 
her, and that right early. The heathen raged, 
the kingdoms were moved ; he uttered his voice, 
the earth melted : the Lord of hosts is with us, 
the God of Jacob is our refuge. Be still, and 
know that I am God ; I will be exalted among 
the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The 
Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is 
our refuge. 5 "' 



2 c 2 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE RAINBOW. 



" Far up the blue sky a rainbow unrolled 

Its soft tinted pinions of purple and gold; 

It was born in a moment, yet quick as its birth 

It had stretched to the utmost ends of the earth ; 

And, fair as an angel, it floated as free, 

With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea." 

" And I will establish my covenant with you ; neither shall all flesh be 
cut off any more by the waters of a flood ; neither shall there any more 
be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the 
covenant which I make betv/een me and you and every living creature 
that is with you, for perpetual generations : I do set my bow in the cloud, 
and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And 
it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow 
shall be seen in the cloud : and I will remember my covenant, which is 
between me and you and every living creature of all flesh ; and the waters 
shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in 
the cloud ; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting 
covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon 
the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, 
which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth." 
—Gen. ix. 11—17. 

How interesting to us all is the fact, that that 
bow which spans the clouds so beautifully amid 
the shower and the sunshine, has been looked 
upon by Abraham, by Noah, by Shem, by 
Japheth, by Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob ; by 
all the world's grey fathers ; by apostles, evan- 



THE RAINBOW. 



389 



gelists, saints, and martyrs, until tlie year that 
now is. There is something striking in the 
lasting nature of the institutions of God, and 
not less striking when contrasted with the eva- 
nescence of the generations — the successive 
generations of man. The expression " I do 
set my bow in the cloud," does not mean that 
the bow was created or instituted then as a 
thing ; but that it was appointed, or selected, or 
established then as a symbol and a memorial to 
all generations. Some think that it was then 
created, and if so, that there was no rain previous 
to the Flood, because none seems to have been 
needed ; and no doubt a vast physical change has 
taken place in the air, the earth, the structure 
and the constitution of our globe since that era ; 
but this opinion appears to me to be the least 
probable explanation ; at all events, it is not 
necessary. The words are not, " I create the 
bow now for the first time," but, " 1 appoint or 
constitute the existing bow that spans the cloud, 
to be a token of my covenant between me and 
you to all generations." 

This rainbow, which so many have looked on, 
has been the theme of poets, the admiration of 
man from age to age ; ever fresh, ever beautiful, 



390 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



never wasting or waning, like all God's grand 
creations, by trie lapse of centuries ; and some- 
times a poet expresses an idea, indeed it is the 
function of the great poet to do so, more fully 
and beautifully than the ordinary expositor can ; 
and therefore I read that beautiful passage from 
the ancient poet, Vaughan, who wrote in 1691, 
where he says : 

" How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye 
Thy burnished flaming arch did first descry ; 
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, 
The youthful world's grey fathers in one knot, 
Did with attentive looks watch every hour 
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower ! 
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair ; 
Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air. 
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine, the sure tie 
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye. 
When I behold thee, though my light be dim, 
Distinct and low, I can in them see Him 
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne, 
And minds the covenant 'twixt all and one." 

Or, as it is expressed by Campbell, in language 
more chaste and beautiful, if it is possible, and 
familiar to most of us : 

" Triumphal arch, that fills the sky 

When storms prepare to part, 
I ask not proud philosophy 

To teach me what thou art. 



THE RAINBOW. 



391 



" When o'er the green, nndeluged earth, 
Heaven's covenant thon didst shine, 

How came the world's grey fathers forth 
To watch thy sacred sign ! 

" How glorious is thy girdle cast 

O'er mountain, tower, and town ; 
Or, mirrored in the ocean vast, 

A thousand fathoms down. 

" As fresh in yon horizon dark, 

As young thy beauties seem, 
As when the eagle from the ark 

First sported in thy beam. 

" For faithful to His sacred page, 

God still rebuilds thy span, 
Xor lets the type grow pale with age, 

That first spoke peace to man." 

So beautifully and truly has Campbell celebrated 
the same lasting sign. 

It may be asked, why this great necessity for 
such a sign suspended in the sky to Noah and 
his family? We may see that everything in 
the chapter is a prescription against the fears, 
and the discouragements, and the despair of man. 
God gave him a prescription against the beasts 
of the field, he gave him a sense of safety 
against the violence of man, and now he furn- 
ished him with a pledge that such a convul- 
sion as that which had swept the earth, and 
borne the ark to Ararat, should not again occur 



392 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

in the history of mankind. One can easily un- 
derstand that, without this sign suspended in 
the cloud for reminding Noah and his family 
of the pledge and promise of his God, every 
careering cloud must have frightened them. As 
they saw the lightnings gleam, and heard the 
thunders roar, and saw the shower begin to 
fall heavily, they must have been tempted to 
say, here is another deluge coining upon us — 
we need not sow the seed in the spring, for we 
shall be all swept away before the autumn; 
we need not build houses, for they will be car- 
ried away by the overwhelming flood. In short, 
all civilization, all progress, all domestic and 
social being, would have been, if not entirely 
prevented, at least nipped in its very commence- 
ment, unless God had given to man some great 
pledge on a great scale, and accompanied by 
some visible §iark, that such a catastrophe should 
not happen to the world again. And hence, 
when Noah recollected God's word, and saw 
span the sky the beautiful bow that was the form 
and the representation of it, — as he saw the black 
cloud hide the sun, — as he heard the rain-drops 
begin to patter upon his roof, — as he listened to 
the thunder reverberating along the mountain 



THE RAINBOW. 



393 



gorges, his heart did not faint, nor did his 
courage droop, for he felt, let nature discharge 
her terrible artillery, let the sky be clothed with 
sackcloth, let the red lightnings flash, and the 
whole horizon be lightened up with their splen- 
dours, I have a protection in the simple promise 
of my God, and I know that that promise will 
stand good to all generations, by the bow that is 
in the sky ; that makes me feel perfect peace, 
sure that the word of the Creator is stronger 
than the forces of all creation combined together. 

I explained in my last lecture that Noah 
offered a sacrifice when he came forth from the 
ark, and that his sacrifice was partly eucha- 
ristic, partly expiatory. Our sacrifice, I showed, 
has been offered. The rainbow comes after 
Noah's sacrifice ; our rainbow, whatever it be, 
comes after ours. We have a sacrifice which 
we have not to offer as Noah had, "for this 
Christ did once for all." The difference be- 
tween us and Noah is just this, that he, through 
a prospective faith, accompanied with the slaugh- 
ter of an innocent creature, expressed his con- 
fidence in " the Lamb slain from the found- 
ation of the world "« — we, in the exercise of a 
retrospective faith, without the painful and san- 



394 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

guinary accompaniment of a creature slain, rest 
in that sacrifice which was made once for all, 
and the last words of which still echo along the 
centuries, " It is finished." There is now no 
more offering for sin ; by that sacrifice the poison 
of sin was neutralized, our transgressions can be 
forgiven, our iniquities completely and fully put 
away ; and we know that there is no condemna- 
tion to us, just as certainly as Noah knew there 
was no second Flood to overflow the world. 
Noah reached the point from God's information 
that there would be no second Flood, and the 
rainbow was the sign of it ; and we have reached 
the conclusion from God's information, that 
there will be no second wrath to us who are in 
Christ Jesus, and the memorial of it is — what ? 
What is our rainbow ? It is the Bible that pro- 
claims this truth — the Lord's supper that is its 
seal — the sign and the standing memorial of it. 
It is the Bible that proclaims this truth. The 
Bible does not make it true, any more than the 
rainbow made God's word to Noah true. It 
merely records the truth. Were the Bible an- 
nihilated, it would be no less true that Christ 
died for our sins. The Bible, therefore, is not 
what makes it true, but it is that blessed book 



THE RAINBOW. 



895 



that records what is true, what has been pre- 
viously accomplished, and never in its facts and 
its issues can pass away. As long, therefore, as 
the pages of the Bible are legible to us, so long- 
as we hear from the pulpit, or can read these 
truths as they gleam from the sacred page, we 
have the sign, the memorial, the token of God's 
covenant with us in Christ Jesus, that there 
is no condemnation to them that are in him, 
that justified by faith we have peace with God 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Bible 
therefore is the confirmatory sign that it is so ; 
it is not for God's sake, but for ours — not because 
he needs it, but because our sense of safety de- 
mands it : and the result of having such a docu- 
ment as the Bible still lasting, is not that our 
safety is thereby made more perfect, but that 
our sense of that safety is thereby more deeply 
impressed. And so with the Lord's supper — 
as long as a communion table is spread on 
earth, we have a sign of the covenant before 
us : and it has been spread from generation to 
generation, and will be spread from generation 
to generation, still testifying to man, that Christ 
our passover is sacrificed for us, and there is no 
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 



396 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

It may be said. If we have the word of God in 
any shape, what is the use of a sign ? I answer, 
scepticism would do without any sign, or sacra- 
ment, or symbol — superstition would make a 
god of it and worship it — enlightened Chris- 
tianity looks at the sign, but passes through the 
sign and rests upon the substance — Christ, and 
him crucified. 

This covenant of which the rainbow was the 
sign, was made with Noah irrespective of any 
worthiness in him. It is a most touching statement 
on the part of God, " I will not again curse the 
ground any more for man's sake ; though the ima- 
gination of man's heart is evil from his youth ; 99 
and therefore the statement implies that this cove- 
nant was made with Noah, not because there was 
any excellence that now shot forth in man's na- 
ture, but in spite of the accumulating demerits 
that were still crowded into man's conduct. 
Even so, that covenant made with us in Christ 
is not the consequence of any excellence in us, 
but, on the contrary, it is in spite of the errors, 
demerits, and sins that are in us. It is to man 
as a sinner, and in spite of his sins, that the gospel 
comes, — that salvation is offered, — that a full, 
free, complete pardon is sealed and signed and 



THE RAINBOW 



397 



made over to him. In other words, " we are 
saved by grace/ 5 is as old as the days of Noah. 
It is not a mere theological dogma for divines 
to quarrel about, but it is a great, all-pervading, 
and precious reality; saved in spite of our 
sins ; saved not because of our virtues, but in 
the face of all we merited, and in the face and 
in spite of all that we have demerited — " God 
so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth on him might not 
perish, but have eternal life." Therefore when 
w r e apply to that God for pardon, when with 
the voice of prayer we draw near to his foot- 
stool, may we recollect that our sense of sin is 
not to deter us from going with boldness to him, 
who has promised to forgive it. He admits and 
contemplates the element of our sin in all his 
provisions and arrangements ; his is not a dis- 
pensation to men who have no sins, but a dis- 
pensation of mercy to men who are stained and 
polluted by sin, in spite of and notwithstanding 
their manifold and innumerable sins. " We are 
saved by grace," means that we are saved in 
spite of what we are. There is not a flower that 
will bloom in Paradise regained ; there is not an 
excellency or glory that will adorn that city that 



898 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

liath foundations ; there is not a joy into which 
we shall enter, or which will enter into us, 
which we shall be able to count as at any price, 
purchased by us, or worked for here in any 
shape. " By works 55 is the way to everlasting 
ruin, and many there are who go thus ; by grace 
is the way to everlasting glory, and, alas, in the 
existing generation it is still the few that find it. 
ee After that the loving-kindness of God our Sa- 
viour to man appeared, not by works of right- 
eousness that we have done, but according to 
his mercy he saved us by the washing of rege- 
neration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." 

Let me notice another peculiarity in this co- 
venant of which the rainbow is the token,— 
that the covenant made with Noah was as im- 
mutable and permanent as the sign that God 
hung up in the sky in order to mark it. Some- 
where about 4000 years have elapsed since the 
Deluge ; the bow still spreads itself on the bosom 
of the clouds, and no second deluge has over- 
flowed the earth. Seed-time appears, harvest- 
home is still celebrated ; and thus we see the truth 
and the immutability of the covenant and the 
covenant-memorial of God. And that better 
covenant that he has made with us is an ever- 



THE RAINBOW. 



399 



lasting covenant^ in all things well-ordered and 
sure, confirmed by his word and his oath, that 
by two immutable things we might have strong 
hope. God gives a word and an oath — not 
because it is necessary to him, but in conde- 
scension to the weakness of man. The whole 
economy of the gospel is not a system of types, 
sacrifices, shadows, ceremonies, oaths, and pro- 
mises, because God needed them ; but of kind 
expressions and proofs of condescending kind- 
ness on God's part, tending by every possible 
moral persuasion to convince us that he longs 
and loves to save us and to make us happy, as 
he now makes us holy, for ever and ever. The 
inherent suspicion in the natural man's heart is^ 
that God lies in wait to destroy him. The first 
triumphant result of grace in man's heart is, the 
conviction that God delights to bless and make 
him happy. I could easily convince all the 
population of London that God is watching for 
their destruction like a tiger watching for his 
prey — that would be easy enough; but the 
great difficulty to overcome, for which types are 
suspended in the sky, sacraments continued 
upon earth, promises and oaths are echoing in 
the sacred volume, is to persuade men that God 



400 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD, 

has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, that he 
delights in mercy — that he longs to save — that 
he loves j not hates — would make happy- — not 
make miserable. God's everlasting covenant 
is in all things ordered and sure — confirmed 
by an oath and a promise. And to this covenant 
he beautifully alludes when he says, " In a little 
wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, 
but with everlasting kindness " — contrasting the 
little wrath with everlasting kindness—" will I 
have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Re- 
deemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto 
me ; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah 
should no more go over the earth, so have I 
sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor 
rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, 
and the hills be removed," — as if it were by an- 
other deluge, or rather by the outbursting of that 
elemental fire which is the world's second bap- 
tism, — " but my kindness shall not depart from 
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be 
removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on 
thee." And regarding us as still in the ark, 
and still upon the floods, he says, *' Oh thou af- 
flicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted, 
behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, 



THE RAINBOW. 



401 



and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I 
will make thy windows of agates." I stated the 
Eabbinical tradition, that the ark had one win- 
dow, as the Bible states, but that that window 
was one vast precious stone, and that stone an 
agate. " And thy gates of carbuncles, and all 
thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy 
children shall be taught of the Lord ; and great 
shall be the peace of thy children." 

We have as great a warrant in believing this, 
as Noah ever had in believing that there would 
not be another Flood. We have as great reason 
for believing God's everlasting kindness and 
justice and tender mercy, immutable as his be- 
ing, as ever Xoah had in believing that there 
should not be a second Flood ; and returning 
sabbaths are to us sure and eloquent signs, as 
the rainbow ever was to Xoah that a second 
Flood should not overflow the earth. Heaven 
and earth may pass away, but one word shall 
not pass away till all things be fulfilled. — 
How can we doubt it ? — Has any prophecy of 
the past failed ? — The sceptic cannot lay a finger 
on a single prediction that was to take place be- 
fore now, and show that it has failed ; while the 
Christian can lay his hands on a thousand that 

2 D 



402 THE CHUKCH BEFOUE THE FLOOD. 

have been fully and gloriously fulfilled. I have 
as complete conviction that God's loving -kind- 
ness shall not depart from his own, nor God's 
overshadowing mercy be withdrawn from them, 
till heaven and earth pass away, as I have, or 
as Noah ever could have had, that a second 
Flood shall not overflow the earth. The least 
promise of God is surer and more lasting than 
the greatest work of man. Towers may fall, 
nations pass away, dynasties be overwhelmed, 
war sweep the wide world with its scourge, and 
all things that are visible be broken up and shat- 
tered and destroyed ; but not one jot shall pass 
away from God's word, till all shall be fulfilled. 
What a glorious foundation ! What a happy man 
should a Christian be ! What reasons for repose 
amid conflict ! What a foundation for rest amid 
tilting thrones and fearing populations has a 
Christian in this, that God is his, and that he is 
God's, and that Omnipresence watches him, Om- 
nipotence defends him, and love and grace and 
mercy constantly follow him. 

If there were no sun, I need not observe, be- 
cause it must occur to all, there could be no rain- 
bow. It is impossible that raindrops could 
make a rainbow without light ; if there were no 



THE RAINBOW, 



403 



sun in the firmament, there could be no rainbow 
overspreading the black cloud. And it is no less 
true, if there were no Sun of righteousness, 
there could be no covenant or covenant-memo- 
rial ; for as truly as there can be no rainbow in 
the sky without a sun shining on it, so sure 
there can be no redemption of a sinner without 
a Eedeemer in the heavens to bestow it. Christ 
is to redemption what the sun is to the whole 
solar system, and more — he is not a mere acces- 
sary in the system, he is its essence — he is not a 
mere ornamental detail, but his name is exalted 
above every name ; he is the substance, the pith, 
and essence of all Christianity. Christianity is 
Christ unfolded, and Christ is Christianity per- 
sonated in himself. The whole of Christianity 
itself, with all its institutions, is merely a medium 
for conveying the light of this Sun of right- 
eousness to us, and conveying this light in its 
purest, softest, and most beautiful effects. What 
are parables, and miracles, and types, and pro- 
mises, and doctrines, and invitations, but the 
rays of pure light refracted and reflected from 
earthly objects, that we may look upon them, 
and the eye not suffer by excess of brightness. 
The whole facts of Christianity — the manger, 
2 p 2 



404 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD, 

the cross, the crown of thorns, the grave, the 
resurrection — are objects on which the rays of 
the Sun of righteousness impinge, and from 
which they are reflected and refracted in all the 
beautiful colours of the rainbow. God's love is 
the pure light of heaven ; God's mercy is that 
light softened and refracted in its transmission 
through Christ, and reaching sinners — the chief- 
est of sinners. Glory is what no man hath seen 
nor can see, in which God dwells as in light in- 
accessible and full of joy ; but grace is glory 
transmitted through Christ, the medium, and 
thus subdued it is visible and welcome to us — 
the first dawn of that day of glory into which we 
shall soon enter. Thus, without a sun there 
could be no rainbow, without a Redeemer there 
can be no redemption, without Christ there is 
no Christianity, without a Saviour there is no 
salvation. 

Not only is the sun requisite to constitute the 
rainbow, but also a dark cloud in the sky, with- 
out which no sun shining through the shower- 
drop could possibly make the rainbow visible. 
If there had been no Fall, there could be no 
rainbow ; if there had been no dark cloud of sin, 
there would not have been, because there would 



THE RAINBOW. 



405 



have been no necessity for the rainbow, the 
covenant memorial of mercy visible to mankind ; 
but where sin hath abounded, grace doth much 
more abound, and what we look upon as the 
most unlikely, God has made the back-ground 
from which he throws up in richest splendour 
his own glory and sovereignty. Have you not 
noticed, as you have sometimes gazed into the 
distant west, how the banks of black clouds that 
threatened to overshadow the sun in his meridian 
throne, have sometimes formed themselves into a 
vermilion and golden couch, on which the king 
of day seems to retire to rest; and thus that 
which threatened to obscure him only makes 
him more glorious as he takes his western ex- 
odus. So has it been with man's Fall, that 
which was meant by Satan and which would 
seem to tend to hide the glory of the Great King, 
is overruled by God's rich mercy to bring 
greater glory to himself and to give greater 
happiness to mankind. And if we wish to see 
God most glorious, it is as he appears amidst the 
exhalations of sin, out of evil educing good, out 
of the Fall evolving a more glorious recovery, 
where he seems robed with the richest splen- 
dour, gathering to himself the brightest glory, 



406 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

when he gathers within his gracious bosom the 
greatest number of pardoned and forgiven and 
sanctified sinners. 

This dispensation has emphatically a rainbow 
character. What is the rainbow ? I have shown 
that if there be no sun there can be no rainbow ; 
and if no black cloud there can be no rainbow. 
The rainbow is therefore the mixture of both 
light and darkness. In hell there is darkness 
without light, the black and portentous clouds 
without one single relieving ray, in other words, 
without grace. In heaven there is the pure light, 
the sky without one cloud, the light without one 
shadow, the pure glory without a particle of 
guilt. There is no refraction there. But on 
earth there is the mixture of the two — -here there 
are rolling over us the dark and portentous 
clouds in which the lightnings sleep and the 
thunders find their lair for a season ; and when 
we dread lest the one shall be launched, and the 
other rush forth on the world, we look up and 
we see athwart the bosom of the blackest cloud 
the beautifully defined rainbow — mercy and 
truth which have met together, and righteousness 
and peace which have kissed each other. Heaven 
is the pure light without any darkness at all ; 



THE RAINBOW. 



407 



hell is the dense darkness without any light at 
all ; in this world the two are in collision — light 
and darkness , holiness and sin, God and Satan, 
truth and error ; and over the mingled mass the 
rainbow. The issue therefore is as certain as 
the throne, and the fulfilment of the promise of 
victory, as the pledges that God has so visibly 
and so graciously given. 

Thus, as you see the rainbow span the sky, 
you may think of that first rainbow, made the 
covenant-memorial to Xoah, that girded Ararat, 
and attested our God's promise, that there 
should be no second Flood, will hold good. But 
you may also pass from viewing the sign of 
this covenant to look at another. In the book 
of Revelation there is described a rainbow about 
the throne — the continuity of the two covenants 
being thus set forth. And whenever, therefore, 
you see the rainbow in the sky, you witness 
a pledge of God's loving-kindness, a memorial of 
his inexhaustible mercy, that carries you back 
to what he said at the beginning, and that 
carries you forward to what he will certainly 
fulfil, when time shall close and eternity besrin 
its grand and endless march. 

Every time we approach the communion 



408 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

table, we cast our eyes upon the sign of that 
which is to be our everlasting covenant, what the 
rainbow was to the covenant made with Noah. 
God did not then create the rainbow, but conse- 
crated it to be the symbol of a great truth. So, 
Jesus did not then create the bread and wine, 
but he took them, already existent, and conse- 
crated them to be the symbols of a grand and 
blessed truth. I fear the expression sometimes 
applied at a communion table, that the minister 
consecrates the bread and wine, is a remnant of 
a superstition which is fast passing away. J esus 
consecrated that bread and wine once for all, 
when he instituted the supper, just as he died 
once for all, when he expired upon the cross ; 
and all that the minister does at that table, or 
rather, all that the communicants do at the table 
— for he is merely the president of the brethren 
there, not a priest in any form or shape what- 
ever — is to pray, not that the elements may be 
changed, but that our faith may be strengthened, 
our love deepened, our devotedness increased, 
and our course like the shining light that shin- 
eth more and more unto the perfect day. And 
just as the rainbow reminded Noah, not only of 
what was passed, but also of the nature of the 



THE RAINBOW. 



409 



age that was to come, so the Lord's supper is to 
be to us, not simply a memorial of a past trans- 
action, but a pledge also of a future joy. It is 
not simply retrospective ; it is also prospective. 
The Lord's supper is not simply a feast for faith 
to feed upon, but a spot in her ascent for hope 
to rest upon. It is not only, " Do this in re- 
membrance of me," but substantially also, as indi- 
cated in 1 Cor. xi. 26, " Do this in remembrance 
of me till I come." And some critics think, 
ff Do this in remembrance of me," might be 
justly translated, " Do this and put me in 
mind." Just as the token of the bow in the 
cloud was appointed for God to look upon, and 
thus to be put in mind of his covenant with 
Noah and all flesh ; so, too, the Lord's supper 
puts God in mind of his covenant with his own, 
as it over-arches with its holy span the past and 
the future, uniting a Saviour who came to suffer 
with a Saviour who will come to reign. Like 
the beautiful rainbow itself, the Lord's supper 
rests upon the cross, and reminds us that Christ 
our passover was slain for us ; it then vaults 
into the sky, sweeps across the ages as they roll, 
and leans the other limb of its arch upon the 
diadem of Jesus ; and thus connecting the past 



410 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and the future, the sacrifice with its humiliation, 
and the crown with its glory, it reminds us of 
him by whose ransom we are redeemed, of him 
who comes the second time without sin unto 
salvation to them that look for him. 

As the rainbow was not the substance of the 
covenant, but the sign of it, so the Lord's sup- 
per is not the substance of our sacrifice, but 
the sign of it. The rainbow was not the cove- 
nant established with Noah, though it is called 
so, but the sign of it. The bread and wine 
are not the body and blood of Christ, though 
they are called so, but the signs of them. 
Noah looked through the sign, and saw the 
sign-giver behind it ; we look through the sym- 
bol, and see the great sacrifice above, behind, 
and before it. 

And when Noah looked upon the bow in the 
cloud, do you think he did so with dismay, and 
dread, and terror ? J ust the very reverse — the 
institution of the bow was to assure Noah, to 
make him happy, and to increase his confidence. 
And the very end of the Lord's supper is to 
produce the same effects on us. 

We may look, as Christians, upon the sup- 
per of the Lord, just as Noah looked upon the 



THE RAINBOW. 



411 



rainbow in the sky. He looked upon the cloud 
that was behind it, in which the thunder slept 
and the lightnings crouched, but the bow was to 
him the proof that they could not touch him. So, 
God's wrath is still revealed against all sin, and 
the law still thunders and lightens upon Mount 
Sinai ; but between Sinai and us is the com- 
munion table, which is to us the sign that these 
fiery judgments cannot touch us. And there- 
fore believers come to that table, not as crouch- 
ing slaves to a tyrannical master, who is ready 
and waiting to scourge them ; not as foes trem- 
bling to the presence of a terrible king 3 who is 
longing utterly to destroy them ; but as chil- 
dren to a father, as the ransomed to a Redeemer ; 
all feeling that if there be one festival in the 
year, it is a communion sabbath ; and that if 
there ought to be a bounding heart on any Sun- 
day, it is on that day when we celebrate the 
love that suffered for us, and look upon the sym- 
bol that tells us that His wrath, like the waters 
of the Deluge, is now dried up, and that a new 
and joyous sunshine gilds the valley where we 
are sojourners, and sprinkles the everlasting 
hills with its first beams, beyond which our 
home, and our heart, and our treasure are. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 

" What havoc hast thou made, foul monster, sin ! 
Greatest and first of ills ! The fruitful parent 
Of woes of all dimensions ! But for thee 
Sorrow and slavery had never been." 

" And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had 
done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants 
shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of 
Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and 
he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant." 
—Gen. ix. 24—27. 

Noah planted a vineyard ; discovered that 
fermentation could produce alcohol; drank of 
it, and became intoxicated. There can be no 
doubt from this, that ancient wine, as ancient as 
the Flood, was alcoholic. It is impossible to 
escape this conclusion. The assertion of those 
who contend that ancient wine had no alcohol in 
it, is not borne out by Scripture. Noah was 
not condemned for planting his vineyard, nor 
for fermenting his wine, nor was he guilty in 
that he drank wine ; his guilt lay in drinking 
to excess. No judgment or censure is pro- 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS 



413 



nounced upon Noah for touching wine, but for 
the excess in which he indulged, some say in- 
cautiously, but that I doubt : I believe he drank 
criminally ; and therefore sinned in the sight of 
God. He awoke from this excessive stupor, by 
his drinking what he should not have touched, 
or used in moderation, and he discovered that 
he had been made the merriment of one of his 
children, on whom he pronounced the words 
prefixed to this chapter. 

We have here the three great parents of 
the whole human family, Shein, and Ham, or 
Canaan, and Japheth. These are the three great 
springs of the human race, whose aboriginal dis- 
tinctions are more or less perpetuated to this 
day : so universally and so deeply is the original 
impress struck on the three great families that 
form the earth's population, that we can still 
easily distinguish them by certain sharp cha- 
racteristics ; the three races are the Asiatic, the 
African, and the European. Subdivisions there 
unquestionably are ; modifications of caste, com- 
plexion, and feature, unquestionably exist : but 
still, these three families are still physically dis- 
tinct. The American, I need scarcely add, is not 
a distinct family, but an offshoot of the great 



414 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLO OB. 

European family, or a descendant of Japheth, 
one of the three grey fathers and founders of the 
human race. It needs very little physiological 
learning to teach us, that the whole human race 
has a common origin. There are moral as well 
as material proofs. We have identity of sorrows 
and joy; identity of health and sickness; iden- 
tity of fears and peace ; identity of life, and com- 
munity of death, to teach us unmistakeably that 
the black skin and the white skin, however 
much they differ as to outward aspect, cover 
one common flesh and blood, and belong to one 
family ; and are but the varying characteristics 
of the great race of mankind. 

These three, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the 
founders of the human race, met together in the 
ark, emerged from that ark on the sides of 
Ararat, and went forth from the mountain range 
to spread the human family from it to the very 
ends of the habitable globe ; the human race, in 
its founders, met once all together under one roof, 
arid around one altar, and beneath the over- 
shadowing wings of one Father ; and were up- 
held and guided together as one crew on the 
stormy waves to a momentary rest on Ararat. 
Blessed be God, it is not the last time they shall 



THE THKEE FOREFATHERS. 



415 



meet — they shall meet again, emerging from a 
more awful catastrophe, in a yet more glorious 
ark, to take possession of a yet more mag- 
nificent Ararat — to enter upon a more lasting 
home ; out of which all cares shall be banished ; 
into which all blessings shall flow ; and from 
which we shall never go forth exiles and stran- 
gers, like Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, to fer- 
tilize the soil with the sweat of our brow, and to 
water the earth with fast-flowing tears ; for then 
there will be no more sorrow, nor tears, nor 
sighing, nor crying, but all former things shall 
have passed away. 

Noah sinned, and yet his sin, whilst it was 
his guilt, was overruled of God to be the occa- 
sion and the proof of a great and important fact, 
It is this — the Flood that washed away a vast 
population from the surface of the earth, did not 
wash out sin from the depths of the human heart. 
God said, before he let loose that dread judg- 
ment, " Every imagination of the thoughts of 
man's heart is only evil continually ; " and He 
said, after that judgment had done its mission, 
(C I will not again curse the ground for man's 
sake, though the imagination of man's heart is 
evil from his youth." We are told by St. Peter, 



416 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

that the Flood was to the antediluvians what 
baptism is to us ; and now, as that Flood only 
cleansed the outer surface of the earth, but did 
not cleanse the inner thoughts of the heart, so 
baptism — for the parallelism is complete — 
cleanses the outer flesh, but it does not purify 
the inner heart. Noah emerged from the Flood 
a sinner ; Ham stepped forth from the ark a 
sinner ; and does it need any argument of mine 
to persuade any, that an unregenerate man bap- 
tized in the most canonical way, and by a 
priestly hand, according to the most exact 
ritual, under the most plausible circumstances, 
emerges from the waters in which he has been 
bathed, or from the sprinkling to which he has 
been subjected, just as he was before? giving 
proof that as the Flood could not make Paradise 
again overspread the earth with its glory, and 
thus anticipate millennial scenes, so ecclesias- 
tical baptism cannot do for man that which is 
the prerogative and function of the Holy Spirit 
alone — regenerate, and sanctify, and save the 
souL 

This sin of Noah teaches another fact. It 
was overruled by God to show that Noah was 
not, as it were, a second Adam, by whom and in 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



417 



whom the great experiment of humanity was to 
be attempted again. He was not the proof that 
God was starting with a new plan, or a new 
foundation. The fact that he sinned is the evi- 
dence that he was made, or born rather, in the 
image of Adam, and inherited Adam's sin and 
deep alienation from God. All that was sin- 
ful in Noah, was from Adam ; all that was holy, 
beautiful, and true, we are told in a previous 
chapter, was by grace. We learn, too, the in- 
veteracy of man's guilt, from the fact that ages 
did not wipe it away, that penalties did not 
destroy it, that all schemes and plans ever since 
have all failed to alter it. The whole vessel of 
humanity is flawed, and marred, and tainted; 
and the more we know poor fallen man, the 
more abased we must feel. There is much in 
man to pity, much to deplore, much to pray for ; 
but it is not our part to set ourselves in con- 
scious and sceptical conceit upon the judgment 
throne, and fulminate anathemas, and pronounce 
condemnation, where it becomes us to bow the 
knee at the throiie of grace, and to pray that the 
God who made would re-make and regenerate 
mankind. 

The more immediate subject of these reflec- 

2 E 



418 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tions is the sentence of Noah. Shall I call it 
the curse ? — I will rather call it the prediction 
pronounced by Noah, and fulfilled, as facts de- 
monstrate, in the case of all the offspring of 
Sheni, and Ham, and Japheth. Shem's excel- 
lence was not the cause of Shem's blessing ; 
Ham's sin was not the cause of Ham's judgment. 
It is quite possible to be the occasion of a thing, 
and yet not to be the cause of that thing. The 
prediction uttered by Noah was not the ebul- 
lition of private passion, but the expression of 
God's everlasting and immutable purpose. If I 
were to be injured by a person, and instantly to 
retaliate in bitter anathemas, it would be sin and 
revenge, which ought not to be. But when a 
minister of God, inspired as Noah was, becomes 
the organ of a prophecy of God, the evidence 
that he did not express his own private feel- 
ings, but was the medium of God's purpose, is 
found in the fact, that what he prophesied has 
been literally fulfilled. If this had been per- 
sonal spite, would God, by the fulfilment of it, 
have sanctioned it ? Surely not. Noah did not 
give vent to an angry curse, because Ham had 
sinned ; or break forth into a great blessing, 
because Shem had done good ; but he became 



THE TIIHEE FOREFATHERS. 



419 



on this occasion the organ, and no more, of 
prophecy ; the instrument, and no more, of a 
blessing pronounced upon the one, and of an 
awful and a solemn judgment inflicted upon the 
other. 

This promise was not so much a personal 
infliction, meant to light on persons, but a fa- 
mily or a national thing, meant to brand or to 
beautify great sections of the human race. It 
was not Canaan personal that he cursed ; it was 
not Shem personal that he blessed ; but their 
descendants. Thus, when we read in the Scrip- 
ture, Ci Esau have I hated, Jacob have I loved," 
we see it was not the individual Esau or the 
individual Jacob that is spoken of, but the fa- 
mily or the state of which they were the found- 
ers and the great forefathers. Even so this 
great curse or punishment here denounced by 
Xoah, lighted on a race. 

But it is the characteristic of all great judg- 
ments, that they are transmitted only when the 
son imitates the depravity of the father, and 
becomes the conductor of the curse that was 
pronounced upon the family ; but the instant 
that the son or the descendant dissents from the 
family in its corrupt features, and developes 
2 e 2 



420 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

new and happier ones, the transmission of the 
curse is arrested, and the individual who is the 
exception in the family becomes an inheritor 
of the blessing. An evidence of this is found 
in the fact that Melchisedec was a descendant 
of Canaan and of Ham, yet Melchisedec was 
king of righteousness and king of peace, bless- 
ed of God, and a type of the great Messiah. 
Abimelech was a descendant of Ham or of Ca- 
naan, as we find in the 20th chapter of Genesis ; 
yet we read of him that the integrity of his 
heart in the sight of God was great, and was 
recognised and blest of God. Thus we find, 
that though the curse be denounced upon a 
family, because of some first founder's sin, as 
soon as a member of that family emerges by 
purity of character, by loftiness of purpose, by 
regeneration of heart, from the circle in which 
the rest are, as far as he is concerned the curse 
is arrested in its transmission, and he becomes 
an inheritor of the blessing which was pro- 
nounced upon Shem. Thus, the judgment of 
Noah was rather a prophecy* relating to a race, 
than a curse or a blessing pronounced upon 
individuals. The difference between the two is 
very marked — a prophecy is what we know will 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 421 

be ; a curse or a blessing is what we wish to be. 
What we know will be is one thing, what we 
wish to be is a very distinct and a very different 
thing. A bad man wishes ill to the human 
race : a prophet predicts judgments upon the 
guilty. Here we have Noah not imprecating a 
curse to be, but predicting a grand and distinc- 
tive condition, domestic, social, and national, 
that should ultimately be, and has really been. 
In the very next passage of Genesis, we read of 
the divisions of the family of Canaan, of Shem, 
and Japheth ; the sons of Japheth divided the 
isles around the Mediterranean Sea, including 
the European nations ; the dwellings of Shem 
were all towards the East, or Asia; the de- 
scendants of Ham occupied Africa, and the 
western parts of Asia, Sidon being their border. 
Not only does the prophet determine the details 
of the possessions of the children of Shem, and 
of Ham, and of* Japheth, but he predicts that 
the descendants of Shem, or Israel, shall have 
the descendants of Canaan, or his father Ham, 
for slaves or bondmen. If we take a chart, and 
trace on it the history of nations, we shall find 
that the curse denounced upon the family of 
Ham or Canaan, has been literally and strictly 



4c22 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

fulfilled. For instance, the Canaanites, as their 
name testifies, who occupied Canaan before the 
children of Israel took possession of it, were 
driven, some from their land, and others were 
made bondsmen and slaves to Israel. At a sub- 
sequent era, in the days of David, the descend- 
ants of Ham, or the Canaanites, were swept com- 
pletely from the land of Canaan. They after- 
wards settled in Africa ; and subsequently they 
became part and parcel of the Roman empire ; 
and in later times we all know that the descend- 
ants of Ham, or the Africans, have been more 
or less the slaves and the bondsmen of the de- 
scendants of J apheth. Let anybody read the 
history of Africa — I am not justifying what is 
there done, but citing fact — has it not been the 
nursery of slaves for the nations of Asia and of 
Europe ? And to this day one petty prince in 
Africa goes to war with another, and the tro- 
phies of the conqueror are slaves for the mar- 
kets of Asia and of America. Slavery is at this 
moment, notwithstanding the noble sacrifices we 
have made, as a country, to suppress it, as flour- 
ishing and as wide-spread as ever it was in the 
history of unhappy Africa — in fact, efforts to 
arrest it have strangely acted in spreading and 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



423 



supporting it ; and yet it is nothing in the Afri- 
can that makes him essentially a slave. People 
fancy, that because the African's skull is not 
rounded so beautifully as ours, that therefore 
the African's brain is altogether inferior to ours, 
and his nature very different. Are you aware 
that the magnificent Christian writer Augustine 
was an African, it may be a Canaanite ? Are 
you aware that Hannibal, who shook imperial 
Rome, and made the Caesars tremble on their 
thrones, was an African, probably as black as a 
negro, a descendant of Ham, not from Japheth ? 
And were it not that there is a mysterious judg- 
ment resting on the race, that we cannot re- 
move, and that they seem yet unable to over- 
come, the African, as susceptible of education as 
we are, would be as signalized by his literature, 
his skill in war, his success in diplomacy, as 
any of the descendants of Japheth, or of Shem* 
At the same time it is worthy of remark, that 
the very curse of Africa is likely to be the me- 
dium of its chiefest blessing ; for slavery, which 
we so deeply deprecate and deplore, is really 
overruled by God at this moment, to be the 
means of the Christianization of that country. 
How often have we tried to ascend the rivers 



424 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

of Africa, and seen our travellers perish mid- 
way by the malaria or poisonous air of the 
climate ! And how often have our missionaries 
travelled in that land, and left their graves the 
only evidence that they were there ! But now 
the slaves of America are coming into contact 
with the Christianity of America, and with the 
Christianity of other nations of the earth ; so 
that at this moment, evil as it is, slavery is over- 
ruled to originate black Christian missionaries, 
to whom the climate offers no obstruction ; and 
who love their countrymen, and go forth to do 
them good ; and thus that which has stained the 
hands of Europeans with infamy and sin, will 
be overruled by the God of all grace, to be the 
enlightenment, and the elevation of a country 
long sunk in darkness and in the shadow of 
death. The prediction, that the sons of Ca- 
naan shall be bondsmen of bondsmen, is ex- 
pressive of the worst slavery that can be con- 
ceived ; whenever the Hebrew writers wish to 
express their sentiments very strongly, they re- 
double the word and speak thus, " King of 
kings," which means a very great king ; so 
" Lord of lords and in this case, u Bonds- 
men of bondsmen," denotes the greatest slavery 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



425 



that man can be subjected to. We do not wish 
to state that this ancient prophecy, which was 
uttered in the neighbourhood of Ararat four 
thousand years ago, and which is fulfilling, and 
being fulfilled at the present moment, defying 
all efforts to diminish it or to avert it, sanc- 
tions our support of slavery in the slightest 
manner ; man was never made to be the pro- 
perty of man, but to be the possession and the 
property of God only. T\ r e are not to take God's 
prophecy, and go forth and do what our con- 
sciences tell us is sin, in order, as we allege, to 
sanctify that sin by appealing to the predictions 
of God. A specimen of this I have been amazed 
at reading in a work published by an illustrious 
politician of the present day. A very able bi- 
ography of Lord George Bentinck has been 
written by a distinguished politic an, D 'Israeli ; 
and in that biography he makes the extraor- 
dinary statement — that it was predicted that 
the Jews should crucify Christ; and therefore, 
it is implied, the Jews were not guilty of any 
sin in doing so. He says, if the crucifiers had 
not been there, how could the Victim have been 
immolated? and that the Jews' part in that 
dread tragedy was as necessary, and therefore 



428 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

as sinless, as was the fact, that the great Vic- 
tim should die ; in other words, he assumes, 
that we are warranted to attempt to fulfil pro- 
phecies, at any sacrifice. Where God prophe- 
sies, he will take care of the fulfilment ; but 
where God prescribes to us, it is ours to obey 
his precepts ; and if Mr. D'Israeli, who has 
so eloquently written upon this subject, had 
only read the Acts of the Apostles, he would 
there have found it stated upon authority that 
he would not, I presume, question, that whilst it 
was the purpose and prediction of God, that 
Christ should die, it was, notwithstanding, sin 
and criminality in the Jews, to put him to death. 
St. Peter, speaking to the Jews, said, " Jesus of 
Nazareth, being delivered by the determinate 
counsel " — there is God's purpose — ee and fore- 
knowledge of God " — there is God's prophecy 
— cc J e have taken, and with wicked hands have 
crucified and slain." So that while it was mat- 
ter of purpose and object of prophecy, it is 
asserted at the same time by Peter — and if we 
read Peter's addresses at the commencement 
of the Acts, we shall find the distinction more 
than once— that it was not the less sinful in the 
Jews, because they executed the prophecy of 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



427 



God. So Cyrus was God's battle-axe, to do 
God's work, yet he was guilty nevertheless. 
Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled God's prophecy, and 
yet Nebuchadnezzar's sin was not virtue. We 
must distinguish between a prophecy and a 
precept ; it is our business to obey the pre- 
cepts ; it is God's prerogative to look after the 
fulfilment of his own prophecies. Never should 
we venture to quote a prophecy as justifying an 
act of ours. We are stepping into God's pro- 
vince when we try to fulfil prophecies ; but iri 
our own, obeying precepts, because they are the 
prescriptions, of God himself. Whatever, then, 
may be the nature and effects of the ancient 
prediction uttered by Noah, and however fully 
it has been realized in the lapse of years, and 
however necessary that all should be fulfilled, 
we are not to conclude that our fulfilling it ex- 
empts us from the crime that cleaves to those 
who make man a property of man; and treat 
the creature, made in the image of God, as if he 
were one of the beasts of the field. 

We have looked at the fulfilment of the pro- 
phecy in reference to Canaan ; let us now see it 
in relation to Shern. We know from the 1 Oth 
chapter of Genesis, that the Jews and the Asi- 



428 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

atics are the descendants of Shem — about this 
there is no dispute whatever, amongst those 
who have written upon ethnography, or watched 
and traced the origin and descent of nations. 
It is said, " Blessed be the God of Shem." That 
implies that Shem should have God for his cove- 
nant God. The first promise made to Abraham 
was, " I am thy God ; and I will be a God unto 
thy seed." We may trace in the constant allu- 
sion to God as the covenant God of the Jews, 
echoing along the centuries the first prophecy 
that was issued by Noah respecting Shem, and 
the God of Shem. Hence, from the altar of the 
J ew alone, amidst the nations of the earth, there 
ascended pure incense ; from the lips of the 
Jew, amidst the mass of nations around, there 
issued true praise ; and only amid the nation of 
the Jews was there exhibited and developed 
that sublime and lofty humility of heart, that 
earnest and pure consistency of character, which 
indicated the presence of the God of Shem, and 
the special benediction of the Lord God of 
Israel. 

Let us notice also the prediction respecting 
Japheth, and see how far it has been fulfilled. 
But here there is a difficulty in the application 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS, 



429 



of the word " lie." " God shall enlarge Ja- 
pheth; and he shall dwell in the tents of Shenu" 
Some think that he there relates to God, and 
that it means God shall dwell in the tents of 
Shem ; others think, and with greater propri- 
ety, that it relates to Japheth, and that it states 
that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem. 
But it is remarkable enough, that in whatever 
light we take it, it has been strictly fulfilled. 
Does it mean that God shall dwell in the tents 
of Shem ? then let us recollect the words of 
the evangelist, " The Word was made flesh, 
and dwelt amongst us.*' The literal translation 
of it is, He shall be the " Shechinah " in the 
midst of Shem. The word " Shechinah '"' is 
derived from the Hebrew word " To dwell 
it therefore means that God shall have his 
temple, his residence, his altar, his dwelling- 
place, in the tents of Shem : or, in other words, 
that the Word shall be made flesh, and dwell in 
the midst of us. But if it means that Japheth 
shall dwell in the tents of Shem, then it implies, 
first, that the great blessings of the Jews, the 
descendants of Shem, shall be shared by the 
Gentiles or the Europeans, the descendants of 
Japheth: and that Japheth dwelling in the tents 



430 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

of Shem, or the Gentile admitted to the same 
grand privilege as the Jew, shall be one of the 
blessed characteristics of the latter day. And 
it is plainly with some such view as this, or ra- 
ther, with this prophecy clearly before him, that 
Isaiah proclaims, with reference to the admis- 
sion of the Gentiles, addressing the Jews, " En- 
large the place of thy tent, stretch forth the 
curtains of thine habitations ; spare not, lengthen 
thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes ; for thou 
shalt break forth on the right hand and on the 
left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and 
make the desolate cities to be inhabited :" he 
evidently alludes to the prediction that Japheth, 
or the Gentiles, shall yet dwell in, or share the 
privileges of, the descendants of Shem, or the 
Jews. 

The prediction added to this, that God shall 
enlarge Japheth, has been most strikingly ful- 
filled in the history of nations to this time. 
Which of the three nations has been most en- 
larged ? Every attempt made by the Saracen or 
the Turk, by the African or the Asiatic, to take 
the land of Japheth, has signally failed ; but on 
the other hand, we find that every effort made 
by the descendants of Japheth, that is, the Euro- 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



431 



pean race, and the crown and the flower of it, the 
Saxon portion of it, has been followed by wide- 
spread and triumphant success. We can quote 
America as a specimen of God enlarging the 
dwelling of Japheth. We can point to our 
countrymen in Palestine, to thousands pene- 
trating Africa, and tens of thousands finding 
settlements by all the great rivers of Asia, as 
proofs that God still enlarges Japheth, and 
spreads that great and powerful section of the 
human family from sea to sea, and from the 
river even to the very ends of the earth. It is 
remarkable also that we hear, in this day, our 
newspapers and our statesmen continually speak 
of the indomitable energy of the Saxon race, 
and of the destiny of the world to be peopled 
and subdued by them. This is just the uncon- 
scious attestation of statesmen, philosophers, and 
literary men, to the fulfilment of the prophecy, 
" God shall enlarge Japheth ; 55 and, quite as 
remarkable, nations seem to flourish precisely — 
if you will allow the expression — in proportion 
as the Saxon element is in them, apart from 
the depressing influence of Romanism, and the 
elevating power of Protestant Christianity. 
Looking to Ireland, let us ask, which is the 



4.32 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

expanding race, the Saxon, or the Celtic ? Who 
are the depressed race there, who have recourse 
to emigration as their only means of escape from 
utter destruction ? The race that are, as it can 
be proved, the descendants of Ham, or the 
Milesian race ; for the present Irish language 
is actually a dialect of the Punic or Carthaginian 
language spoken in the days of Hannibal. At 
all events, it is so like it, that it would appear, 
from inscriptions on ancient monuments, to be 
an offshoot from it. Now whilst it is quite true, 
that Protestantism elevates a nation, and Popery 
degrades it, there seems something in the Sax- 
on character powerful, indomitable, expansive; 

' while there seems something in the African cha- 
racter, wherever its blood even mingles, or still 
more predominates, that leads to degeneracy, 
weakness, and almost ruin. What is this, but 
the 19th century proclaiming by its facts, that 

- the prophecy which was uttered 4000 years ago 
is true ; and that thy word, O God, is truth ? 

We might show at far greater length, but 
what is here stated clearly proves the fulfilment 
of this ancient prophecy, that Canaan shall be 
a servant of servants unto his brethren ; that 
Shem shall be blessed in the knowledge and 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



433 



enjoyment of the true God ; and that Japheth 
shall dwell in the tents of Shem 3 that is, be par- 
ticipator in Shem's privileges, or, as some think 
that dwelling in tents is connected with enlarge- 
ment, it also means taking possession of the 
country of Shetn. Let us look to the East — who 
are the lords of India ? In whose hands is it at 
this moment I In the hands of the descendants of 
Japheth. How striking thus to see this ancient 
prophecy fulfilled before our eyes ! How strange, 
after proof on proof, that any man should doubt 
that Moses wrote as he was inspired by the Holy 
Spirit of God ! 

One or two short lessons are suggested. We 
see from ancient prophecy, thus carried into 
fulfilment by God, that his word shall cleave 
its way to its own accomplishment, in spite of all 
obstructions, and in the face of every difficulty. 
Man thinks he is acting for himself, whilst un- 
consciously he is but the instrument in the 
hand of God. He has sketched the patriarchal 
cartoon, and man is rushing, in all ages, with all 
his might, to fill it up. God has predicted what 
shall be, and man unconsciously is doing what 
He has said must be. The accidents of time 

2 F 



434 THE CHUKCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

are the inspirations of God; the deeds of man 
are the fulfilment of the prophecies of God. 

There is much of sovereignty in all that God 
does. Why curse Canaan? why bless Shem? 
why enlarge Japheth ? These are some of the 
" whys " that we often ask, and to which we can 
get no answer. We have less of originating 
power than we suppose ; God reigns. " Thou 
hast hid these things, O Father, from the wise 
and prudent ; and thou hast revealed them unto 
babes." Why this was we cannot say. The 
close will explain the beginnings the light of 
eternity shall shine upon the dark nooks of 
time ; the voices of heaven in the last day, will 
resolve and harmonize the apparent discords 
which we hear and are puzzled by, in this dis- 
pensation. 

If we are the children of Japheth, let us re- 
collect that we are the partakers of great privi- 
leges, and have, therefore, higher, loftier, less 
exhaustible responsibilities. Why does God 
make one man stronger and another richer than 
his fellow ? Not that they may exact more, but 
that they may give and sacrifice more. Why 
has God made Japheth so great ? That J apheth 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



435 



may be the instrument only of greater o'ood. 
Why is the English tongue the possession of 
America, and of India, and of Palestine, and of 
vast sections of Africa, and increasingly so ? It 
is. no doubt, that this tongue, inspired by the 
riches of Divine light, and life, and grace, may 
be the medium of countless benedictions to all 
the ends of the earth. There is nothing we may 
look to with greater hope than this, that our 
country's power is spreading every day; and 
there is nothing we should pray for with greater 
fervour, than that where our country's power is 
felt, mankind may taste and feel her mercy too. 
TTherever the roll of our conquering drum is 
heard, may the glad voice of the gospel be 
heard also : on whatever strand, or in what- 
ever harbour, our ships drop their anchors, may 
the glad tidings of a Saviour be heard. God 
grant that Englishmen may go forth to the ends 
of the earth, not like the locusts of Egypt, to 
blast and blight every green and beautiful 
thing ; but the pioneers of good, the lights of 
the world, to shed the splendours of the cross 
upon all mankind ; or the salt of the truth, 
silently, but no less effectually, to saturate all 
that are in contact with them, or under their 



436 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

influence. If we are exalted in privilege as the 
descendants of Japheth, there is no room for 
pride. Our privileges and our sins should 
equally humble us. Our privileges are not our 
own, therefore they should humble us. Our 
sins are our own, therefore they should humble 
us. Amid our blessings we should ever feel, 
" Who has made thee to differ ? " and as God 
has made us, not by our desert, but in his own 
sovereignty, so great, it is that we may be a 
blessing in proportion to the extent of our pros- 
perity unto all that come into contact with us. 

Let us learn, in the last place, that to be 
the descendant of Japheth, highly exalted, and 
even to be the descendant of Shem, with the 
knowledge of the true God, is not necessarily to 
be a Christian. Many are Abraham's children ac- 
cording to the flesh, who have no saving acquaint- 
ance with Abraham's God. Let us remember 
that to be classed in the family of Japheth, will 
only add to our condemnation, if we walk unwor- 
thy of it ; and that the great pre-requisite that 
admits into glory, and without which we shall 
never see God in mercy and in love, is to be 
born again. It matters little whether we be 
English, Scotch, French, or Irish ; — if we be not 



THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 



437 



Christians, — real, living, converted Christians, 
— we can never become the heirs of God, and 
fellow-partakers with the saints of the covenant 
of promise. The kingdom of God is not country, 
or climate, or race, or meat, or drink, but right- 
eousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Enoch's prophecy. 

" Oh, on that day, that wrathful day 
When man to judgment wakes from clay, 
Be thou, O Christ, the sinner's stay, 
Though heaven and earth shall pass away." 

" And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, 
Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute 
judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of 
all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all 
their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." — 
Jude 14, 15. 

In the course of some lectures on the 11th 
chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (Voices 
of the Dead,) there will be found illustrated at 
length these words, " By faith Enoch was trans- 
lated, that he should not see death ; and was 
not found, because God had translated him : for 
before his translation he had this testimony, that 
he pleased God." We now turn to another fact 
in the history of the same illustrious member of 
the Church before the Flood, the prophecy here 
alleged by the sacred penman to have been 
uttered by Enoch. 



Enoch's prophecy. 



439 



But before we do so, let us notice some of the 
characteristics of Enoch. First of all, we find 
that the line of Enoch was the lineage out of 
which Christ was to come. In marking out the 
family of Adam in its best and most beautiful 
divisions, the line of Cain is passed by, and 
seemingly forgotten ; the line of Seth, so much 
the superior of the twain, is selected as the 
lineage out of which Christ was to come, and yet 
this line is any thing but faultless. We have 
only to trace it through its successive links 
until it comes to the days of Noah, and on- 
ward to the patriarch Abraham, and we shall 
find that the very choicest specimens of all 
humanity — those singled out because of their 
peculiar and distinctive excellence — were yet 
morally vitiated, and made in the likeness of the 
fallen Adam. 

In looking at the character of Enoch, we see 
that the highest personal piety is perfectly con- 
sistent with a life led in the world, and the fulfil- 
ment of all the duties and the responsibilities 
that flow from it. Enoch was not a recluse, his 
home was not an anchorite's cell, his life was 
not that of an ascetic. He did not live a monk 
— he did not die a suicide. He had sons and 



440 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

daughters, he belonged to society, he was a hus- 
band, a father, and a friend; and yet he was 
distinguished for his piety and superiority to the 
sins, the follies, and the vices of mankind. We 
have therefore in this early age evidence that 
the ascetic life is not necessary to the highest 
Christian attainments, that the very loftiest ap- 
proach to the character of God may be realized 
without coming mechanically out of the world, 
but by being morally superior to its sins and its 
corrupt practices and evils. 

Above all, we have the character of Enoch 
defined by one grand feature, namely, his re- 
lation to God. He is said to be one who walked 
with God. This is a most expressive trait ; 
it is the leading touch in the picture, that 
reveals all the rest. His walking with God, or 
his relationship to God, like the great law of 
gravitation in the physical world, kept all the 
rest of the parts of his character in perfect pro- 
portion, harmony, and order. Wherever there 
is genuine piety, there will be pure morality. 
Let our relationship to God be put right by 
regeneration of heart, and renewal of nature, 
and our relationships to each other will all 
beautifully fall into their natural and proper 



Enoch's prophecy. 



places. How short, however, is the biography 
of this good man ! How little is said of him, but 
how much is implied ! Read the life of a Caesar, 
an Alexander, or a Napoleon, and you find 
whole volumes necessary to register their ex- 
ploits : but the reader of the life of one of the 
most illustrious Christians of the ancient day, 
sees a single line alike his epitaph and his biogra- 
phy. The roaring cataracts of time make great 
noise and startle the still world ; but the sw r eet 
and gentle streams that beautify it as they run 
with a belt of verdure, and flower, and fruity 
make no noise at all. And yet, the few words in 
which Enoch's life is expressed are eloquently 
suggestive. A whole biography of holy and 
consistent character is called up by the simple 
announcement, fe Enoch walked with God." 

And when one looks at the rest of this record, 
and the characteristics of the age, as these again 
are enunciated by God himself in a subsequent 
chapter, we must see how very solitary, in one 
sense, Enoch's life was. He was not alone in the 
sense that he was not in society : but he was alone 
in his deepest and truest sympathies, and feel- 
ings, and relations. The highest Christian in the 
heart of the greatest crowd may be far more alone 



442 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



than the ascetic living in a cell, or perched upon 
the trunk of a tree in the midst of the remotest 
desert. Real aloneness is not something corporeal, 
material, outer ; it is spiritual, moral, inner. 
Enoch, in the midst of a world of great excite- 
ment, of rare criminality, of vast enterprise, 
walked with God; alone in his feelings, with 
few to respond to them, or to take sweet coun- 
sel with him, as he walked to the place where 
God dwelt. And yet, in this solitariness of his 
character, there was a sublimity that only makes 
it appear the more illustrious and beautiful. He 
walked with God, when the rest of mankind 
about him were walking, as it is subsequently 
recorded, after the imaginations of the thoughts 
of their own hearts, which were only evil con- 
tinually. 

We learn from this allusion to Enoch, that 
God never yet in the history of mankind was 
without a witness to himself. There never has 
been an age when the corruption has been so 
dark, universal, and unrelieved, that there was 
not one single witness to protest and testify 
against it. In the darkest eclipse of the heaven, 
some bright stars have caught the eye of some 
spectator ; and in the bleakest deserts, wilds, and 



epoch's prophecy. 



448 



solitudes of the earth, there blooms often the 
most beautiful and fragrant flower : unseen bv 
man, yet as beautiful as if meant for universal 
inspection. And in the mediaeval ages, when 
the whole visible Christian framework had be- 
come degenerate and corrupt, there were links 
of a true succession invisible to man. but visible 
to God. connecting the apostles of the first cen- 
tury with the Reformers of the sixteenth, and 
indicating that God never in the worst of times 
was without a witness to proclaim his praise, or 
bid the nations look and live and be happy. 

We learn also that the time never was when 
there was no church in the world. The church 
is not a thing of the Xew Testament as distin- 
guished from the Old. There was a church when 
Adam and Eve and Abel were the three who 
met first in the name of Jesus, and realized then 
as truly, if not so fully, as we do now the fulfil- 
ment of the promise, " I am in the midst of 
them." And there was a church, wherever 
Enoch found one or two, as surely he did, to 
join with him in worshipping God. And wher- 
ever now, under whatever form, or longitude, or 
latitude, two or three shall meet together in 
Christ's name, there will be a true church of the 



444 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Lord Jesus Christ. The church has been from 
the beginning ; and if we are to listen to that 
church, let us listen to Enoch, to Noah, to 
Abraham, to Job, to Isaiah, to the prophets, 
evangelists, and apostles, its choicest members, 
for all these were members, teachers, and minis- 
ters of it. 

The church never yet was without teachers. 
The name Enoch means " teaching, 55 although 
some have thought it means rather " educated." 
He was a public teacher of the truth. He 
taught it by what he was, as well as by what he 
said. He walked with God, and that walk was 
an eloquent homily : God took him, or translated 
him to himself, and that translation was an im- 
pressive peroration to it. When Enoch there- 
fore walked with God, he was, and thus showed 
he was, a teacher sent from God. The fact that 
Enoch prophesied, is evidence that he had an 
official character as well as a personal relation- 
ship to God, and was a teacher of the church in 
which he lived, a prophet who spake as he was 
moved by the Holy Ghost, a light in the sur- 
rounding darkness, an oracle in the midst of 
abounding error. 

The holiest man was selected by God to de- 



Enoch's prophecy. 



445 



noiince the most awful judgment, not only upon 
that age, but upon all mankind at the close of 
this dispensation. Who was selected to pro- 
phesy, u Behold, the Lord cometh with ten 
thousands of his saints, to execute judgment 
upon ail. and to convince all that are ungodly 
among them of all their ungodly deeds which 
they have ungodly committed, and of all their 
hard speeches which ungodly sinners have 
spoken against him 99 I It was the holiest man. 
So awful and solemn a duty, it was fit to devolve 
upon one who walked with God, and lived 
nearest to him. He was the prophet of the 
judgment to come, whose life was the most 
beautiful instance and specimen of Christian 
consistency and conduct. Holy lips alone should 
enunciate awful judgments. It was a holy man 
who was selected to be God's first prophet of 
the coming woe. The burden of a prophet's 
woe should lie upon a heart that is the habita- 
tion of God himself. And therefore, Enoch, 
the righteous, was selected to give utterance to 
the prophecy, so very solemn in its character, 
" The Lord cometh to execute judgment." 

Having offered these prefatory remarks upon 
the prophet, let us look at his prophecy. The 



446 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

first question that has been asked is, Where is 
this prophecy recorded ? Where did Jude find 
it ? Nothing is said in the 5th chapter of Genesis 
about Enoch prophesying the descent of judg- 
ment upon the nations of the earth. Some have 
supposed that he refers to an apocryphal book 
called the Book of Enoch, which contains a 
statement something like this ; and that Jude, 
therefore, assumes the inspiration of a book not 
registered in the sacred canon ; but this cannot 
be proved. In the first place, it can be proved 
that the Book of Enoch, which some scholars 
have discovered, and which, I believe, one has 
published, was not written till the 4th or 5th 
century after the Christian era ; and that Jude, 
therefore, could not refer to a book which did 
not exist at the time when he wrote his Epistle. 
Nor is there any necessity for supposing that 
he at all refers to any book. He states a fact ; 
and the same inspiration that prompted Jude to 
write his Epistle, revealed to Jude the prophecy ; 
and the truth of the prophecy, like the truth of 
the Epistle, rests upon the immediate and un- 
questioned inspiration of God. We therefore 
conclude that Jude knew the fact to be so, and 
the prophecy to be truth ; and inspired and 



Enoch's prophecy. 



447 



guided by the Holy Spirit of God, he enun- 
ciated it for the information of the church in all 
ages. 

We find in Jude the true use to be made of 
good men. Jude records simply the prophecy, 
but does not propose the worship of Enoch ; 
ana our practice ought to be, not to canonize 
the saints that are gone, but to collect the lessons 
they have left behind them, to learn those lessons 
as far as they were the echoes of God's truth, 
and to imitate their conduct as far as they fol- 
lowed and imitated the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
only relic of Enoch that Jude recognised, is the 
prophecy he left behind him, and the only im- 
ages that we should regard of those who have 
gone before us, should be the truths they taught, 
and the examples they set. It is not the adora- 
tion of their names, but the imitation of their 
examples, that becomes us. In no part of the 
word of God are we told to collect the relics, 
or to ask the intercession, or to apply for the 
merits of those who have preceded us to glory ; 
but in every part of it we are told to learn the 
pure lessons that they taught, to imitate the 
holy example they developed, and to be guided 
by that learning and that imitation only so far 



448 THE CHURCH EEFORE THE FLOOD. 

as they taught the truth of God, and imitated 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

We learn, from this allusion of Jude, that 
Enoch was the first and most ancient prophet 
after God himself. The first prophecy was in 
the form of a promise, " The woman's seed shall 
bruise the serpent's head." The next catholic 
or universal prophecy was that enunciated by 
Enoch, when he said, " Behold, the Lord cometh 
with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judg- 
ment upon all." And yet, we believe this pro- 
phecy to be true, not because it is old. Mere 
age does not make falsehood truth, and seeming 
novelty does not make truth false. Antiquity 
without truth is simply the inveteracy of error. 
We do not look to the antiquity of a dogma, in 
order to assert our reception of it, but to the 
truth of that dogma. Some ancient things are 
false, some apparently recent things are true; 
and God's inspired truth is like himself ; it was, 
is, and ever shall be, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and for ever. But we accept the prophecy, not 
because it is a relic floated down from an ancient 
and a distant age, but because it is a truth bear- 
ing the image and the superscription of*lnspira- 
tion itself. 



Enoch's prophecy. 



449 



Now this prophecy of Enoch was strongly ap- 
plicable to the antediluvian age. Men lived long, 
and because they lived to a great age and were 
vigorous in health, as they were gigantic, some 
of them, in stature, their sins and their crimes 
were corresponding to their age, their strength, 
and their position. Hence our Lord, when 
alluding to the days before the Flood, describes 
them in such terms as these, " In the days that 
were before the flood, they were eating and 
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, 
until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and 
knew not until the flood came 99 — a picture that 
implies the utter absence of anything like real 
religion, from the hearts and the cares and the 
anxieties of the antediluvian population ; and 
no doubt they were saying then, as men say 
now, u All things continue as they were from 
the beginning of the creation." How startling 
to their atheistic hopes must have been this 
voice, clear and piercing, ringing amid a 
thoughtless population, (C Behold, the Lord 
cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to exe- 
cute judgment upon all ! 99 This voice of Enoch 
must have sounded to the antediluvian sinners 
exactly as the warning of our Lord in the par- 

2 G 



450 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

able sounded to the fool while he was saying, 
" I have much goods laid up for many years/' — 
" Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required 
of thee." In an age when dishonesty was 
promising gain, when vanity was promising dis- 
tinction, when ambition was promising place 
and power, when unbelief was promising safety, 
God's word, louder and stronger than them all, 
proclaimed, The Lord cometh to execute judg- 
ment upon all the ungodly." 

Now such a warning voice as this is no less 
needed now. It is literally, if I may use the 
expression, more true now than it was then. 
Every day that shuts down upon the earth 
bring? us one notch nearer that epoch, when the 
Lord shall come with ten thousands of his saints ; 
and every year as it closes brings us a greater 
stage nearer to that day of the Lord, when the 
heavens and the earth shall be on fire, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat, and a new 
heaven and a new earth shall emerge, where- 
in dwelleth righteousness. Every one knows 
how prone poor humanity is, even in its best, 
that is, its Christian aspect, to settle down and 
say, u Two or three years ago, five or six years 
ago, I thought we were on the eve of great 



Enoch's prophecy. 



451 



things ; I thought that the earth was quaking, 
and all things agitated and disorganized, pre- 
paratory to the advent of Him who shall re- 
adjust and re-order and re-harmonize all ; but 
now all things continue as they were : since the 
fathers slept there is no change. Nature still 
pursues her course, the sun still rises, and stars 
still come, and all things continue as they were." 
We need a booming sound borne across the 
waters from the continent of Europe, from 
nations still agitated, seething, and convulsed, to 
give us, like a premonitory warning from heaven, 
a pre-sign how frail is the crust on which we 
stand ; how many, how deep, and how terrific 
are the powers that are sleeping, not extin- 
guished or destroyed, beneath it. 

But it is refreshing to recollect, that what is 
fitted to awe an ungodly and a thoughtless 
world, is calculated only to give consolation to 
the people of God. Enoch felt no dismay, be- 
cause he believed his own prophecy ; his heart 
beat calm in the prospect of it ; and those saints 
who shared in Enoch's piety were conscious of 
no feelings of awe, or alarm, or dread, because 
they anticipated the sure fulfilment of Enoch's 
solemn prophecy. It is so now ; those who may 
2 g 2 



45& THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

be justly agitated by the prospect of approach- 
ing doom, are not the people of God. They 
stand loose to the world ; their repose is not on 
its breast, they rest on the Rock of ages, and 
feel perfectly sure that 66 though the earth be 
removed, and though the mountains be carried 
into the midst of the sea, though the waters 
thereof roar and be troubled, though the moun- 
tains shake with the swelling thereof ; there is 
a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the 
city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of 
the Most High. God is in the midst of her ; 
she shall not be moved ; God shall help her, and 
that right early." Therefore the believer can 
say to his own heart, H Be still; " as God now 
says to him, " Be still, and know that I am God ; 
I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be 
exalted in the earth." The ungodly may tremble, 
Enoch's prophecy is the knell of their doom. It 
appears all dark to them, it reflects only sun- 
shine to the people of God ; it is the savour of 
death to the sinner, the savour of life to the 
Christian. The Lord cometh in majesty, but 
yet in mercy, taking vengeance upon them 
that know him not, but gathering to himself, 
far beyond the reach of scathe or injury, those 



Enoch's prophecy. 



453 



who have washed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb. In the heart 
of the believer, it is the day of his glorious con- 
quest, the commencement of his true, his joyous 
life ; the day when all perplexities shall be 
cleared up, when the troubler shall no longer 
have power, and the troubled shall no longer 
have pain, when God shall extinguish the springs 
of sorrow, and wipe away all tears from all eyes, 
and we, removed for ever from contact with sin, 
shall be for ever with the Lord. The aspect of 
the text depends very much upon the character 
of the reader. This prophecy of coming judg- 
ment comes like the knell of doom, where it is 
believed, to the unrenewed ; but to the children 
of God it sounds as the first note of their sure 
and approaching jubilee. They feel perfect 
peace in the prospect of it. Do we ? 

What a contrast will be presented to his pre- 
vious state, when the Lord shall come with ten 
thousands of his saints ! Once a sufferer, now 
a triumphant King. Once in a manger, now 
upon a throne. Once weeping for us, suffering 
in our stead, dying for our salvation ; now, to 
them who look for him, does he come wearing 
many crowns, robed in majesty, the second time 



454 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

without sin unto salvation. The contrast be- 
tween Christ's first advent and his second advent 
is entire ; and yet both advents, the sorrowful 
and the triumphant, are to a believer only 
springs of comfort, of repose, and peace; he 
knows him in whom he has believed. 

This prophecy of Enoch is evidently the 
chord that runs through all the prophecies of the 
Old and New Testament Scriptures : it seems to 
have been the basis or suggestive source of them 
all. It was the first seed sown. The very 
same truths are expressed by our Lord himself, 
when he said, " This gospel of the kingdom 
shall be preached in all the world for a witness 
unto all nations ; and then shall the end come : " 
and again, when he stated, " As the lightning 
cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto 
the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of 
man be ; " that is, he shall come with all the 
unexpected speed, and with all the dazzling 
splendour, of the lightning flash in the dark 
midnight, crushing some, and lighting others 
home. We shall have very little premonitory 
warning of his immediate approach ; we know 
not when he comes, we only know that he will 
come with the unexpected speed, as he will burst 



Enoch's prophecy. 



455 



upon us with the dazzling splendour, of the light- 
ning itself. And " immediately after the tribula- 
tion of those days shall the sun be darkened, and 
the moon shall not give her light, and the stars 
shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the hea- 
ven shall be shaken " — all thrones, principalities, 
potentates, dominions, shall be darkened, shat- 
tered, disorganized, broken. Then he says, " He 
shall send his angels with a great sound of a 
trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect 
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to 
the other. But of that day and hour knoweth no 
man ; no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father 
only." And because the day and the hour are 
not known, we are therefore always to stand 
ready. And the apostle expresses the same pro- 
phecy of Enoch in another formula, when he 
says, " The Lord shall descend from heaven with 
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ 
shall rise first." He proclaims the same pro- 
phecy in another shape, when he tells us, " The 
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with 
his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking venge- 
ance on them that know not God, and that obey 
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall 



458 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

be punished with everlasting destruction from 
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of 
his power, when he shall come to be glorified in 
his saints, and to be admired in all them that 
believe in that day " — the two aspects of the 
prophecy constantly presenting Christ made wel- 
come by his own, in whom he is to be admired, 
while he will be manifested and dreaded by his 
enemies, and unexpected by those who know not 
the gospel, and who shall be the conscious vic- 
tims of an irretrievable destruction from the 
presence of the Lord. 

But the phase- of the prophecy on which 
Enoch dwells is its more awful one. He says, 
" The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his 
saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to con- 
vince all that are ungodly among them of all 
their ungodly deeds." Who are these ungodly, 
who will be the subjects of this judgment ? Very 
true, they will be the profane, the blaspheming, 
the atheistic, the infidel, the immoral : quite true, 
these will be among them. But those whom 
Enoch specially specifies are not such only ; 
they are " the ungodly." Now who are the un- 
godly ? Thousands are ungodly, who in all the 
relationships of life are most exemplary. Many a 



Enoch's pi?ofkecy. 



457 



consistent father and excellent husband, good 
master, obedient servant, loyal subject, is each 
an ungodly man. God has selected here, not 
those who we should instantly conclude must be 
the victims of such a consuming judgment, but 
a class to which so many unconsciously be- 
long, a class whose sinful peculiarities are so 
delicate as to be perceptible only to the spiritual 
eye. They fancy all is right with them, be- 
cause they are not what other men are — adul- 
terers, drunkards, thieves, and such like. The 
ungodly are just those who have no constant go- 
verning sense of love, loyalty, or responsibility 
to God. They are exemplary and excellent in 
all the relationships of life, but are overruled by 
no influence whatever that comes from God. In 
short, they would be precisely what they are at 
this moment, if there were no God above, and 
no eternity before. If they are honest, they 
are so constitutionally. There are men con- 
stituted by nature with such a nice and keen 
sense of integrity, that they would not be 
guilty of the least 'dishonesty on any terms, or 
under the pressure of any inducement whatever. 
And there are other men who have so sensitive 
a sense of what is kind, and generous, and 



458 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

loving, that the keen instincts of their nature 
melt their very hearts into sympathy and love. 
It is their nature. They cannot help it. All 
this is most beautiful. Far be it from me to 
say anything that might be misconstrued as de- 
preciating these almost unwithered flowers of 
Paradise — these fair blossoms that relieve the 
almost universal winter of the social system. 
What we say is, beautiful as they are, they are 
not enough. There is a relationship to God that 
ought to be first, greatest, chiefest ; and this 
ought to be, while the others ought not to be 
trodden down. They even will be the subjects of 
the predicted judgment, and the first subjects, 
who are praised by men, but unknown to God 
— " I never knew you ; " who have been right 
in every earthly relationship, but wrong in this 
heavenly one. For this privation there is no 
compensation. Suppose a colony were to revolt 
from the parent country; and suppose that 
colony, after its revolt and wilful separation, 
were to be characterized by everything that is 
good and peaceful and right internally — its 
homes happy, its people obedient, and its laws 
observed, and everything in its condition all 
that can be desired in a prosperous and happy 



Enoch's prophecy. 



459 



land. Suppose these people, through their 
officers, to plead with the parent country from 
which it has wickedly revolted, as their apology, 
that it had every inner excellence and quality 
and character. This would not vindicate their 
rebellion. And so with us, it is no excuse for 
having left our relationship to God, that we 
maintain our relationships to each other; be- 
cause if we observe the last six commandments 
of the decalogue perfectly, yet the first four 
commandments are surely not given simply to 
be broken. If we should be able to plead at 
God's judgment-seat, "All the last six com- 
mandments of the decalogue we have kept per- 
fectly," God will still ask us, " But what have 
you done with the first four ? You have been 
just to your neighbour, you have been sober in 
yourselves ; but you have not been godly, that is, 
maintained and fulfilled your relationship to me, 
as you were bound by my law and your nature 
to do." The ungodly are moral without reli- 
gion ; their virtues have earthly, not heavenly 
roots. Wherever there is real religion in the 
heart, of course there is morality in the life ; 
and if there be not, the religion supposed to be 
in the heart is a pretence and a delusion. But 



460 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

there may be morality in the life of a certain 
kind, without religion in the heart. All religious 
men are moral, but all moral men are not religi- 
ous. And therefore, the men who are specially 
singled out here, are just that very class which 
we are least likely to think in danger, because it 
consists of those who are everything that is 
beautiful and just in the relationships of time, 
but who have no affinities with the everlasting ; 
who live just as if there were no world to come, 
who have no sympathy with God, no felt relation 
to eternity, whose character, in short, has not one 
element in it created by a deep and pervading 
sense of love and responsibility to that God who 
made us, and gave his Son to die for us. Thus we 
can understand alike the guilt and nature of the 
class singled out here as the first subjects of the 
visitation ; and if they perish, what shall be the 
end of the rest ? 

There are indeed but two great comprehen- 
sive classes that constantly exist, and that will 
turn up at the judgment-day just as they have 
been, — the godly and the ungodly, with their 
shades of character. At that day all distinctions 
are either merged in this, or they are barely ap- 
preciated by Him who sits upon the throne of 



Enoch's prophecy. 



461 



judgment. We are so prone to intrench our- 
selves within a party, or a sect, or a denomina- 
tion, and to fancy, just because we belong to that 
party, and are surrounded by the laws and the 
bulwarks of that sect, that therefore we cannot 
be wrong ; that we need frequently to be in- 
formed the distinctions which God recognises are 
those which ecclesiastics never deal with ; and 
the distinctions that will last and live and appear 
sharp and clearly denned at the judgment-day, 
are these,— the godly and the ungodly, the saint 
and the sinner. The bound-lines that we draw, 
will all be swept as wave-marks on the sea-sand 
by the flowing tide ; but the great bound-lines 
that have been since Paradise, will last till the 
judgment-day, and will appear again. It is not 
therefore an outward name, however musical, 
that will shelter us. It is not a mere connexion 
with a class, a party, or a sect, that will save us. 
The question at the judgment-day will not be, 
whence we come, or what we are called, or of 
what family we are ; but who we are, and on 
whom we stand, and whether grace — sovereign 
grace — has transformed us. 

Let us be therefore more intent on building 
up an inner life than an outer one. Let us be 



460 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

there may be morality in the life of a certain 
kind, without religion in the heart. All religious 
men are moral, but all moral men are not religi- 
ous. And therefore, the men who are specially 
singled out here, are just that very class which 
we are least likely to think in danger, because it 
consists of those who are everything that is 
beautiful and just in the relationships of time, 
but who have no affinities with the everlasting ; 
who live just as if there were no world to come, 
who have no sympathy with God, no felt relation 
to eternity, whose character, in short, has not one 
element in it created by a deep and pervading 
sense of love and responsibility to that God who 
made us, and gave his Son to die for us. Thus Ave 
can understand alike the guilt and nature of the 
class singled out here as the first subjects of the 
visitation ; and if they perish, what shall be the 
end of the rest ? 

There are indeed but two great comprehen- 
sive classes that constantly exist, and that will 
turn up at the judgment-day just as they have 
been, — the godly and the ungodly, with their 
shades of character. At that day all distinctions 
are either merged in this, or they are barely ap- 
preciated by Him who sits upon the throne of 



Enoch's prophecy. 



461 



judgment. We are so prone to intrench our- 
selves within a party, or a sect, or a denomina- 
tion, and to fancy, just because we belong to that 
party, and are surrounded by the laws and the 
bulwarks of that sect, that therefore we cannot 
be wrong; that we need frequently to be in- 
formed the distinctions which God recognises are 
those which ecclesiastics never deal with; and 
the distinctions that will last and live and appear 
sharp and clearly defined at the judgment-day, 
are these,— the godly and the ungodly, the saint 
and the sinner. The bound-lines that we draw, 
will all be swept as wave-marks on the sea-sand 
by the flowing tide ; but the great bound-lines 
that have been since Paradise, will last till the 
judgment-day, and will appear again. It is not 
therefore an outward name, however musical, 
that will shelter us. It is not a mere connexion 
with a class, a party, or a sect, that will save us. 
The question at the judgment-day will not be, 
whence we come, or what we are called, or of 
what family we are ; but who we are, and on 
whom we stand, and whether grace — sovereign 
grace — has transformed us. 

Let us be therefore more intent on building 
up an inner life than an outer one. Let us be 



462 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

more anxious to belong clearly and unmistake- 
ably to the class of saints, than to some sub- 
lunary coterie, or ecclesiastical distinction or 
order, upon earth. The only two successions 
that have never failed, that began in Paradise 
lost, and that will reach the very margin of Pa- 
radise regained, are sinners by nature, and saints 
by grace. 

In this solemn prophecy, it is predicted that 
he shall judge them for all their ungodly words 
which they have ungodly spoken, and for all 
their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly 
committed. A word once spoken goes on re- 
peating itself for ever, a deed once done never 
can cease its reverberations in this dispensation ; 
by a law of science the word that now comes 
from my lips will be reflected and reverberated 
round and round the globe, till hushed at the 
eve of the judgment-day. Our senses are so 
blunt, that we cannot perceive the more delicate 
vibrations ; but that does not make those vibra- 
tions cease to be. This will explain a thousand 
statements in the word of God. At that day we 
shall hear with awful dismay, if among the lost, 
the guilty words we spoke, the unholy whispers 
we breathed, and the vibrations of all the deeds 



exoch's pkofhecy. 



463 



we have done, loud, clear, and ringing ; the 
very atmosphere will be the register and even 
whispering gallery of all we said ; and the very 
earth, the page on which will be written all we 
did ; and we shall see ourselves at that day re- 
flected and repeated from all things around us. 
If this be so, if all the ungodly deeds that un- 
godly men have done, and all the ungodly words 
that ungodly men have spoken, are to come up 
in retributive responses, in manifold reflections, 
what a solemn meeting will a judgment-day be ! 
But their sins will not come up on a judgment- 
day to God's people. There is a voice that 
u speaketh better things than the blood of Abel," 
and that is the blood of Jesus ; and that sound 
will absorb all sounds of sin and sorrow what- 
ever : and there is an efficacy in that precious 
blood, so real, so vital, so powerful, that it will 
cleanse the earth as it cleanseth the heart from 
all the traces and the records of our transgres- 
sion. Nothing but the forgiveness of our sins 
through the blood of Jesus will stop the resur- 
rection of our sins, or deaden and destrov the 
echoes of our evil. Nothing but pardon now 
can extinguish the certainty of our meeting, and 
meeting in dismay, our sins and our transgres- 



464 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

sions again. Do we desire that that word once 
spoken by us., which we would give all the world 
to recall, may never rise from the dead, let 
us appeal to the voice of the blood of Jesus that 
speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. 
If we wish that that deed' which we have done, 
the lineaments of which are engraven upon 
memory, and the reflection of which is upon the 
earth on which we tread, a dark and ominous 
spectre, and upon the sky on which we look, a 
deepening cloud, though our blunt senses can- 
not now see it ; if we wish that the original 
should be blotted out from memory, and that 
the reflection may be blotted out from the earth, 
behold the blood of Jesus Christ that " cleanseth 
from all sin. 5 ' If we will not take the gospel's 
grand provisions, we must make up our minds 
to hear, reverberating in everlasting crashes of 
thunder, words that we would not now should 
be heard for worlds ; and to see, revealed in the 
lightning in which the Judge comes, deeds that 
we would give worlds now to be expunged for 
ever. They that will not accept the gospel of 
J esus, must meet him as they are with the deep 
graven lines of their transgressions upon them, 
and the dread reverberations of their own im- 



exoch's prophecy. 



465 



godly words around them, saying, " Inasmuch 
as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it 
not to me ; " " Depart, ye cursed, into everlast- 
ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." 
This is the only alternative. We must be 
Christians, or brave the issue. 

Every day as it closes brings us nearer to the 
time when this great prophecy of Enoch will be 
realized. Scenes are coming successively within 
the horizon that the most casual observer cannot 
be blind to. I expressed my conviction that 
in 1848 the seventh vial began to be poured 
out ; that there was then the commencement of 
" the great earthquake," when " great Babylon " 
should come "in remembrance before God;" 
and w r hen the kingdoms of the earth should be 
disorganized, to make way for a kingdom that 
cannot be moved. (Rev. xvi. 17 — 21.) The 
first shock of the earthquake occurred in 1848. 
We are just upon the eve, as far as one can 
gather from the shadows of coming events, of 
a more terrific one. Ask statesmen, ask those 
who are competent to give an opinion, what 
they think of the aspect of continental Europe 
at the present moment. There is not a kingdom 
over the continent that does not rock ; there 

2 H 



466 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

is not a throne in Europe that is any more 
secure by being defended by bayonets than 
it was before ; there is not a population in Eu- 
rope that is not at this moment seething and 
restless under an undefined impression of pos- 
sibilities that cannot be, or under an assured 
conviction of the need of events and changes 
that they think ought to be. Very solemn 
is the period at which we stand. Very soon, 
in all likelihood, Europe will be blazing 
around us, its cities the volcanic mouths and 
craters of the pent-up elements of ruin. Very 
soon, days of trial and of trouble such as have 
not been since the beginning will overtake 
us. When they do come, none will stand the 
ordeal of that day but they who are Christ's 
people, not by name, but in deed and in 
truth. 

And while there are many things that will be 
very dark in that day, one can see, striking 
through the gloom, rays of bright hope and of 
coming glory. That very earthquake that will 
disorganize kingdoms, bury proud capitals, and 
agitate the world, carries with it, like a mill- 
stone into the sea, great Babylon that pollutes 
the earth. I have no more fear that the Romish 



Enoch's prophecy. 



467 



Apostacy will gain the supremacy in this land, 
than I have that Mahometanism will. I be- 
lieve it is now plunging in its last spasmodic 
convulsions. It will, like a dying maniac, put 
forth its most tremendous energies in its last 
struggle, but its fury is the evidence of its last 
moments ; in spite of all, it will go down like 
a millstone into the sea, and shall be heard 
and seen no more at all. And the Jews will 
begin to look at their long-lost home, already 
setting their hearts upon Palestine. And Chris- 
tian men will begin more than ever to let go 
the distinctions which they have worn, and to 
think only of the glorious and lasting and vital 
features that characterize and stamp all the 
people of God. But amid all the havoc and 
obscurity of coming conflict, we can see — and 
therefore we lift up our heads because our re- 
demption draweth nigh — emerging from beneath 
the horizon, the Sun of righteousness, and about 
to rise with healing in his wings to them that 
fear him, and still look for him the second time, 
without sin unto salvation. 

The nearer that the time for these things is, 
the busier we ought to be. If we want to keep 
our estates, let us lay them out. If you want 
2 h 2 



488 THE CHUKCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

to be rich, give. If you want to be strong, ex- 
pend your strength. If you want to be really 
built up in your faith, try to build up others in 
their most holv faith. The shorter the time that 
remains, the more we have to do. Charge every 
hour that lasts with intenser feeling. Crowd 
into every day that remains acts of greater be- 
neficence. Concentrate every energy, seek to 
be useful, determine to make men better for 
your having been in the world. The light will 
soon be out, the day will soon be done, the night 
cometh when no man can work. And if we be 
God's people, the nearer we are to the Lord's 
coming with ten thousand of his saints, the more 
busily we shall be getting ready to meet him. 
Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord 
cometh, he finds toiling in his Lord's vineyard, 
and in his Lord's employment. And then, 
blessed result ! as the issue of it, all creation 
shall be emancipated from its bondage. The 
repressive curse that weighs down Eden beneath 
us, and prevents its bursting out into flower 
and blossom, will be removed ; the desert will 
become green, the wilderness will blossom as the 
spring of Paradise, and nature will be fairer in 
her last robes than she was in her first. And, in 



exoch's prophecy. 



469 



the next place, the brute creation shall be re- 
stored and emancipated from their bondage. 
The whole creation, says the apostle, groans 
and travails in pain, waiting to be delivered. 
Man makes rise of the bad instincts of the brute 
creation — instincts from beneath, not from above 
— in order to promote his own sinful or thought- 
less purposes ; but a day conies when these, too, 
shall be repaired, " and the wolf shall dwell with 
the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 
kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the 
fatling together ; and a little child shall lead 
them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; 
their young ones shall lie down together : and 
the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the 
sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, 
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the 
cockatrice' den. And they shall not hurt nor 
destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth 
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
the waters cover the sea." Then, too, the sons 
of God, when the Lord comes with ten thou- 
sand of his saints, shall be manifested ; the 
tabernacle of God shall then be with men; God 
shall then wipe away all tears from all eyes ; 
Enoch's grand prophecy shall be lost in John's v 



470 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

grander Apocalypse ; the genesis of Moses shall 
be merged in the re-genesis of the Revelation ; 
all things shall be made new, and God will 
again appear in the midst of a better Eden, and 
speak with man at eventide, no longer a re- 
fugee from him under the consciousness of sin, 
but his son, his friend ; reclaimed, restored, re- 
generated, — all things made new. When the 
Lord shall thus come with his saints, taking 
vengeance on them that know him not, may we 
be spared and kept, as a man spareth his son 
that serveth him, and be found among his jewels 
on that day. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Enoch's creed. 

" 1 There is no God,' the foolish saith, 

But none, ' There is no sorrow :' 
And Nature oft the cry of faith 
In bitter need will borrow. 

" Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 

By way- side graves are raised ; 
And lips say, ' God be pitiful,' 

That ne'er said, • God be praised.' " 

" But without faith it is impossible to please him : for he that cometh 
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that 
diligently seek him."— Hebrews xi. 6. 

The apostle draws the inference embodied in 
these words, from the statement he had made 
respecting Enoch, who was translated, and who 
had this testimony, that he pleased God. The 
inference he makes from this is, that if Enoch 
pleased God, he must have had faith ; that same 
faith which he, the apostle, had in Christ the Sa- 
viour, — for without faith, it is impossible to please 
God. Without this grace, whatever excellency 
we may have, we cannot please him. We may 
be the most learned, the most eloquent, the most 
wealthy, or the most renowned, it matters not, 



472 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

without that faith which gives to every grace its 
excellency, to all fruits their flavour, and to all 
flowers their tints, it is impossible to please God. 
It is faith, however, not in a proposition, but in 
him who proposes it. The faith of a Christian 
is not built upon a series of arguments that 
make out a certain conclusion ; but simply upon 
this, Thus saith the Lord. We accept the pro- 
posal, not because we can prove it, — this the 
mathematician does ; but because God says it, — 
this the Christian does. We may prove a pro- 
position contained in Scripture on independent 
data, and there is no sin in doing so ; but we 
must never let go this inner and vital fact, that 
we receive the proposition simply because God 
says it, and upon his authority alone. Faith, 
then, is not in reason, nor in the church, nor in 
authority, nor in antiquity, nor in numbers, nor 
in the fathers ; but simply in Christ Jesus, than 
whom there is none other by whom we may be 
saved. 

Without this faith, it is impossible to please 
God. The very question, " What must I do to 
be saved?" has only one answer to it, "Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
be saved ; " or, Have faith in the Lord Jesus 



Enoch's creed. 



478 



Christ, and thou shalt please God. If, then, 
without faith in him it is impossible to be 
s :ived, without faith in him it is impossible 
to please God. Christ is the way in which 
Enoch walked, and without believing in Jesus 
we cannot enter upon that way which Christ is. 
Without faith in Christ, we are not in the way 
that leads to heaven : we cannot, therefore, walk 
with God ; we cannot, therefore, please God. 

Without faith in Christ, we cannot have that 
natural disposition which is declared to be 
" enmity to God " extracted, and that true dis- 
position which is declared to be love to God 
implanted in its place. The apostle himself 
tells us in his Epistle to the Romans, They that 
are in the flesh, they that are carnal, uncon- 
verted, unregenerate, cannot please God. Be- 
tween God and us, in such a state, there can be 
no coincidence of walk ; there can be no unity 
of design ; there can be no harmony of nature ; 
there can be no identity of object : we are at 
issue : we are opposed to each other : and until 
a man be regenerated by that Holy Spirit which 
is given only to them who believe in Jesus, and 
ask that gift in his name, it is impossible that he 
can please God, So that, to please him, or to 



474 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

walk with, him, we must have a change in state 
that is secured by the righteousness of Jesus, 
and we must have a change of nature which is 
produced by the power of the Holy Spirit ; and 
without that change of state which, introduces 
us to a new way, and that change of nature 
which gives us a new love and aim and end in 
walking in that way, we cannot please God. 

But the apostle gives the reasons and the 
grounds for his conclusion, in these words, " He 
that cometh to God must believe that he is, and 
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him." Let us look at these propositions 
thus early received : first, at the belief that God 
is; secondly, at the belief that God is a re- 
warder; thirdly, at the character of those who 
exercise that faith ; who thus like Enoch be- 
lieve, and accordingly " come to God," and 
also " diligently seek him." We have three 
great propositions : first, God's being ; secondly, 
God's being, discovered to man's faith, de- 
veloped in God's bounty, in our belief that he 
is a rewarder ; thirdly, the nature of faith ana- 
lyzed and explained by this description, that he 
who has it comes to God, and that he diligently 
seeks him. 



Enoch's creed. 



475 



The first proposition that comes before us, as 
the object of faith, is this: God is. 

We are not left wholly to the Bible for the 
conclusion that God is. Conscience from its 
depths protests against the atheistic wish, No 
God, — " The fool hath said in his heart, No 
God." In the depths of man's conscience, even, 
when it is most diseased, there is felt — not seen, 
but felt — a law ; and if a law and penalties, 
a law-giver who gave the law, and will in- 
flict the penalties. Man's conscience comes to 
the conclusion — that there is a God, try to dis- 
tort it, fend it off, keep it down, as he likes ; 
every man knows that there are moments when 
fears, hopes, and trembling anxieties about the 
future and his relationship to God, bubble up 
from the depths of the conscience, and indicate 
the terrible chaos of thought, feeling, and anx- 
iety that are below. 

Not only does conscience say, There is a 
God ; but there is scarcely a nation upon earth 
that has been discovered, even in the most 
barbarous nooks of it, that has not some idea of 
some one superior to man, who controls all, 
and who may be, and ought to be, propitiated 
by man. They may have very wrong, very 



4T6 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

absurd, very corrupt conceptions and definitions 
of God ; but that they acknowledge the exist- 
ence of a God, or of something superior to man, 
is the result of every inquiry into their circum- 
stances. It has been often thought that a con- 
viction so universal, that has lasted so long, 
must be true. If it were not an instinct in the 
human heart, it would have been worn out long 
ere now ; but because it is an instinct that God 
has implanted and fixed there, and made part 
and parcel of our very constitution, our pre- 
judices and passions and depravity have never 
yet served, or succeeded, in utterly exclud- 
ing it. 

Creation, also, testifies to the existence of a 
God. Wherever we find a house, there we in- 
fer there must have been a builder. Wherever 
we see a watch, we infer there must have been 
a watchmaker. Wherever I see a creature, I 
argue there must have been a Creator. There 
is immense philosophy in that psalm, " He 
made us, not we ourselves." Wherever, then, 
I see effects, there I must believe there has 
been a cause. This book of nature is torn 
and defaced in many places ; but still, even on 
its most mutilated and defaced fragments, I can 



Enoch's creed. 



477 



see lingering, unquenched, and unquenchable 
remains of tlie glories of a God. Creation tells 
us there is a God. All its elements,, from the 
pebble on the sea-shore to the planet in the sky, 
preach there is a God. From the flower by the 
wayside to the sun on his meridian throne, all 
things great and all things small, silently, but 
irresistibly, teach, There is a divinity that stirs 
within them, who made and shaped and still 
maintains them. Truly, it is a fool, intellectually 
as well as morally, that concludes, or even 
wishes, Xo God. 

It is impossible for the very highest creature, 
even an angel, to come to the conclusion that 
there is no God. All that any creature can do 
— the very utmost that he can reach — is to say 
that I have not been able to discover anything 
within the limited range of my experience, that 
satisfies me that there is a God. He must be a 
very stupid or a very wicked man, not to have 
discovered in his own exquisite organization, — 
in that heart with its thousand strings so accur- 
ately tuned and kept so wonderfully in har- 
mony, — the great Creator must have originally 
made it. He must be a very stupid, or, if not, 
a very depraved man; but at best no one can 



478 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

come to a conclusion broader than this, that he 
has not been able to discover that there is a 
God ; for how does he know that just ten yards 
beyond the horizon that he has spanned there 
may not be the legible demonstrations of a God ? 
how does he know that just twenty yards beyond 
the ground that he has explored there may not 
be something that says, There is a God? The 
man that asserts, There is no God, must be able 
to say, I have pierced the earth, and bored all 
its strata; I have swept the firmament, and 
penetrated all its mysteries. I have sounded 
every deep, and risen to every height, and 
searched every star, and analyzed every object. 
In other words, the man that can say, There is 
no God, must himself be God, which is an ab- 
surdity, and an inconsistency ; for if finite, the 
very space that he had not penetrated may be 
the very lesson-book that tells, There is a God. 
And, therefore, all that a man can say is, tf I 
have not been able to discover him ; " if he has 
not been able to discover there is a God, even 
within the range of his own experience, w r e re- 
peat it, he must be very blind, or very unwill- 
ing. The eye alone, that pure mirror, the 
ear also, that wonderful chamber of sound, 



exoch's creed. 



4T9 



the hand likewise, as one has proved in one of 
the Bridgewater Treatises — these and every 
other fragment of the human frame reflect and 
indicate a God ; and tell us 3 that God is. 

But Enoch goes further — a Christian by faith 
believes that there is a God. In other words, 
he accepts the existence of a God. not as the 
conclusion of a process of reasoning, but as a 
proposition announced by God himself. He 
accepts the Bible as God's book. He believes 
God's testimony respecting himself: and, there- 
fore, by faith he believes that God is. To his 
circumcised ear, every doctrine in the Bible is 
the mind of God : every precept in the Bible is 
the will of God ; every promise in the Bible is 
the bounty of God. He sees God in all things : 
he traces his footprints in all paths ; he hears 
his Father's voice in all dispensations. He be- 
lieves not, as some do, that God was : but he 
believes, as saints do, that God is : not only be- 
ing, but actually operating ; not that God created 
things, gave them an impulse, and left them to 
themselves ; but that God created all, and that 
what philosophy calls the lavs of nature are 
but the continuous touches of God ; that what 
philosophy calls the forces of nature are but 



480 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



the evidences of God's power touching all, re- 
tuning all that is deranged, and controlling all. 
Hence, a believer sees God in all the provi- 
dences that occur in all the chapters of his his- 
tory. In all great catastrophes, in all little in- 
cidents, in the upheaving of a kingdom, in the 
overthrowing of a throne, in the turning of a 
corner, the Christian believes that God is. By 
faith he believes that God is. A child of 
God feels that he is not a victim of accidents, 
and chances, and changes, and random vicissi- 
tudes. He is embosomed in God, and God is 
embosomed in his deepest and dearest convic- 
tions. It is with him no naked, abstract piece 
of philosophy, Thou, God, seest me ; but it is 
with him his innermost, his dearest, his deepest 
thought, Thou, God, seest me. Justified by the 
righteousness of Jesus, washed in his blood, 
guided by his Spirit, he loves to be with God, 
and desires God to be with him ; he sees all 
things in God, and God in all things, and the 
wide world's intricate mechanism " working for 
good to them that love God, and are the called 
according to his purpose." And thus., the faith 
of a Christian that God is, places the creature 
in his lowly place of adoring humility, while it 



Enoch's creed. 



481 



recognises God in his lofty sovereignty, and ex- 
clusive supremacy, as the Controller, the Guar- 
dian, and the Guide of all. Enoch believed not 
only that God is, but that he is in Christ the image 
of God, " God manifest in the flesh." " The 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and 
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only- 
begotten." The mere naturalist sees a God in 
nature ; the mere legislator sees a God in law ; 
but by faith we see more clearly, what Enoch 
saw more dimly, that God is in Christ not go- 
verning the world only, nor enunciating law 
only, but reconciling the world unto himself. 
It is only in Christ that we see God in all his 
glory, his attributes in perfect harmony, and 
just as he is — God just, while he justifies the 
sinner that believes ; God holy, while he takes 
the guilty one that comes to him to his bosom. 
This spectacle, this vision, is only to be seen 
while we stand, where Moses stood, on the ever- 
lasting Eock, and let the Lord pass before us, as 
he proclaims liimself the Lord, the Lord God, 
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, keeping- 
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, trans- 
gression, and sin. Only from God in Christ can 
we hear these words, " I, even I, am he that blot- 
2 i 



482 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



teth out all thine iniquities." Only of God 
in Christ can we read this, " If we confess our 
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us pur 
sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
Only from God in Christ can we hear these 
words, " Come, and let us reason together ; 
though your sins be like crimson, they shall be 
like wool ; and though they be red like scarlet, 
they shall be white as snow." 

By faith, we believe that God is in nature 
controlling it, in law guarding it, in Christ 
reconciling us to himself, and blotting out all 
our trespasses. By faith we receive a vision of 
God's being, infinitely brighter and more glo- 
rious than any mirror of that Being that na- 
ture can furnish even to those that extort her 
deepest secrets, or that law can utter to those 
that listen with the holiest and the most atten- 
tive ear. In nature God is, but above us ; in 
the law God is, but against us ; in Christ God 
is, but Emmanuel, cc God with us," our Father 
and our Friend. 

But by faith we not only believe that God is, 
or God's being ; but we believe, too, in God's 
bounty, " that he is a rewarder of them that 
diligently seek him." 



exoch's creed. 



483 



We often misinterpret the word "reward." 
Reward is not the consequence of merit, but the 
sequence of work. We are not told here that 
we merit, and therefore get the reward; but 
that we work, and the reward is graciously 
vouchsafed to us. Where the word u reward " 
is used by the sacred penmen, work, but not 
merit, is always implied. - c Now to him that 
worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, 
but of debt ; for to him that worketh not, but 
belie veth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his 
faith is accounted for righteousness." Thus 
speaking of reward, he teaches it may be given 
by grace, as well as by work. We read in an- 
other passage, ee The reward of inheritance ; " 
but if it be inheritance, it cannot be deserved. 
€S God said to Abraham, I am thy exceeding 
great reward." Now, says the apostle, " Abra- 
ham was justified, not by works, for then he 
would have had something to glory in, but was 
justified by faith." It is called " reward," to 
show that Christians do not enter heaven in- 
dolent men ; but, on the other hand, it is said 
to be by grace, to show that they do not enter 
heaven as meriting or self-righteous men. They 
run, they strive, they fight, they labour ; yet 
2 i 2 



484 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

they get to heaven not because they do so, but 
through Christ ; and yet without doing so, they 
do not enter into heaven at all. Two things 
are plain : unless we strive we shall not enter ; 
unless we labour we shall not obtain ; unless 
we sow we shall not reap ; unless we fight we 
shall not be crowned. And yet, we are not 
crowned because we fight ; we do not reap be- 
cause we sow ; we do not obtain because we 
labour ; but we are saved by grace from the first 
pulse of life to the first enjoyment of glory. 
The reward, therefore, is by grace, and not of 
works. The devils believe ; but, not having a 
promise of a reward, they tremble. We believe 
in God ; but, having the sure promise of the 
reward of the inheritance, we rejoice in hope of it 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory. There 
may be much in the faith which thus believes 
in God, and believes, not that he shall be, but 
" that he is, a rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him," to perplex the Christian. David, who 
believed this very proposition, that God was " a 
rewarder of them that diligently seek him," was 
yet so perplexed when he saw the wicked pros- 
per, and the godly suffer, that he exclaimed, 
cc Surely in vain have I washed my hands in 



Enoch's creed. 



485 



innocency. It is plain that God is not a moral 
governor ; that God is not the rewarder of them 
that diligently seek him. I have suffered for 
my religion by the scorn of foes, because I hid 
it not ; but all this is entirely in vain, because 
God is not a rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him." But he waited ; he went into the 
sanctuary; he listened to what was preached, 
and read there ; and he discovered that, in spite 
of appearances, " God is a rewarder of them 
that diligently seek him for " They are brought 
into desolation, as in a moment ; they are ut- 
terly consumed with terrors." They are placed 
in slippery places ; and though for a moment 
the sun may seem to shine upon them, it is only 
that the darkness that speedily cdrnes may seem 
the more terrible. We see, too, an ancient 
prophet who was perplexed and thought that 
he was cast off ; but who, when he read and 
pondered God's word more, said, " Though 
the labour of the olive should fail, and the 
fields yield no meat, and there be no herds in 
the stall, and every thing should proclaim that 
God is not a rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him ; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and 
joy in the God of my salvation." If present 



486 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE ELOOD. 

appearances ever indicate to us, as they some- 
times do, that God is not a rewarder of piety, 
let us recollect this is not the day of judgment, 
but the day of grace. God suffers the wicked 
occasionally to prosper. In God's dealings 
with us, he frequently afflicts, not to gratify 
revenge on his part ; but for our good. And 
very often God's hand may be heavy, when 
God's heart overflows with love. Very often 
the blackest cloud, that seems to us to be a per- 
fect eclipse, may conceal behind it, or may be 
itself the vehicle of, benedictions that are des- 
tined to burst upon us. You must not judge 
that God has ceased to be, and to be a re- 
warder of them that seek him ; because pre- 
sent appearances are not what we think they 
should be. God deals on a large scale. He 
arranges things for great, magnificent, and 
worthy issues ; and often it is necessary that his 
people should suffer for a season, before they 
rejoice and be exceeding glad with their great 
reward in heaven. Yet a Christian's most af- 
flicted hours are often his sweetest and most 
blessed. The day-time with all its splendour 
has but one sun ; but when the sun sets, and 
the night comes, the whole sky sparkles and 



Enoch's ckeed. 



487 



glows with innumerable stars. A Christian's 
day-time has but one sun : but a Christian's time 
of sadness, depression, and affliction, often re- 
veals to him glories in the height and bless- 
ings at his feet, that he never conceived, still less 
calculated upon : and, at all events, whatever be 
our present state, patient continuance in well- 
doing is followed by glory ; and we who are be- 
lievers may yet say, :i Henceforth there is laid up 
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
the righteous Judge, shall give me at that clay ; 
and not to me only, but unto them also that love 
his appearing." But rich, or poor, obscure or 
renowned, Jew or Gentile, Greek or barbarian, 
bond or free, God is — where we do not see him; 
faith implies the unseen, or it is not faith : God 
is, even when we do not see, even when we see 
the contrary — faith still believes " that he is — a 
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' 3 
And when perplexed by the inexplicable oppo- 
sition to this by occurrences that seem utterly 
to frustrate it, the Christian falls back on what 
the Lord said, " "What I do thou knovest not 
now, but thou shalt know hereafter.'*' 

Let us look at the way in which this faith is ex- 
plained — " they that come to him." The Chris- 



488 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tian is a person that " comes to God/' lie is a 
person " that diligently seeks him." "What does 
this imply ? When we read that one comes to 
God, we see phraseology borrowed from the an- 
cient temple service. The Jew, before he could 
present his sacrifice, had to come to the temple 
physically. He must come from a distance to 
the mercy-seat, the glory between the cherubim, 
the high priest, and the ever-present God. The 
phraseology of the New Testament is in this 
borrowed from the ancient ritual of Levi ; and 
hence the Christian who believes in God is said 
to " come " to him. 

The word " come," implies that we are by 
nature at a distance from God. We are de- 
scribed by the apostle as "far off" from God: 
by nature it is too true we are not near to 
God. Sin by its projectile force has cast us 
out from the presence of God. In this distant 
position, we are not only far from God, but 
we are disinclined to go to God. We are 
worse than far off ; we are enmity and op- 
position to God. So strong is this enmity to 
God in the bosom of the most amiable, the 
most gentle, the most courteous and accom- 
plished by nature, that it needs Omnipotence to 



Enoch's creed. 



489 



overcome it ; for " no man can come to me, ex- 
cept the Father which hath sent me draw him." 
The lost sheep needs to be gone after by the 
shepherd, and, when the shepherd has found it, 
would you not suppose it would gratefully fol- 
low him till it reached the fold? Alas! before 
that lost sheep, after it has been found, can be 
brought back to the fold, it must be put upon 
the shepherd's shoulder, and carried home. 
We need not only to be discovered, detected in 
our hiding, to be found by the Shepherd who 
first seeks us ; but in every step and movement 
of our journey forward, to be carried on the 
shoulder of him that has discovered us. In 
other words, we need not only omnipresent 
love to search for us in our hiding ; but we need 
omnipotent power to carry us home, before we 
can reach the fold. A Christian who believed, 
who was converted, thirty years ago, needs as 
much grace to keep him right this year, as he 
needed to keep him right thirty years ago. 

We need grace to put us in the right way, 
and we need no less the same grace to keep us 
there. The impression, and the semi-atheistic 
notion, of some is, that God formed the world, 
gave it a projectile impulse, and that, from the 



490 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

force of that impulse, it has rolled in its orbit 
ever since : and some Christians seem to fall 
into an analogous error — that God set them 
going thirty years ago, and that now they must 
continue under their first momentum in the 
same way of their own strength. God created 
the world, and he controls it. God discovers 
the sinner, and conducts the sinner home ; he 
acts, as truly as acted. The heart beats, not 
because God wound it up and set it going, but 
because he touches it every moment ; and the re- 
generated heart loves, not only because God set 
it loving, but because he keeps it loving all the 
day long. In him, by nature, we live and have 
our being ; in him, by grace, we live, and move, 
and have our redemption. We need not only to 
be discovered in our distance from God, but to 
be sustained at every step in our journey home 
to God. 

But how are we to come to him ? There is 
but one way ; there is no name under heaven 
but one : " No man cometh unto the Father but 
by me." Christ suffered for sin, " the just for 
the unjust," to bring us to God. "Him that 
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out ; " and 
ee we have boldness by a new and living way, 



ENOCH'S CREED. 



491 



which he hath consecrated for us by his own 
blood. ?? Hear, then, this great truth, that there 
is but one way to heaven. Christianity is most 
exclusive in one respect : it is most large, 
liberal, and comprehensive in another. It pro- 
claims with earnest exclusiveness, There is but 
one way to heaven. It matters not how near to 
it you are, or how often you may cross it ; if 
you do not walk in it you cannot reach heaven. 

TTe must come to God by Christ, the way, 
the only way : and, coming thus, and thus only, 
we learn that he is. The gospel is not a theory ; 
it is experience. They that come to God learn 
that he is. How precious is this ! We go to 
God with the supposition that he is ; we retire 
from God with the demonstration that he is. 
We go to God believing that he is ; and we re- 
main with God experiencing in our hearts that 
he is. Thus, experiment leads unto experience : 
experience leads unto more faith ; faith leads 
unto assurance ; and assurance unto quietness for 
ever. The true credential of Christianity is in 
the believer's own bosom. Xo man ever read 
the Bible diligently, dispassionately, prayerfully, 
without detecting, scarcely latent, under every 
leaf of this Tree of Life, the evidence of the 



492 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

glory and the inspiration of God, No man 
ever earnestly ventured on Christianity, trying 
to make the experiment of its reality, without 
experiencing, in the long run, that it is the 
wisdom of God, and that it is the power of 
God unto salvation. 

I must notice another definition of this faith. 
It is, we cc diligently seek him." We are to seek 
him with the whole heart. Seek him with the 
same intensity with which men seek profit in 
business, success in their efforts, honour, or 
whatever else the world sets out in pursuit of. 
Let us seek God as diligently, as earnestly, as 
the world seeks its own. 

We are to seek him, first of all, in his own 
blessed word. The Bible is the oracle of truth, 
the very likeness of God. It is the exactest 
mirror and representation of Deity ; not in stone, 
nor carved in wood; but in eloquent words, 
pure, vivid, living ideas. This blessed book 
you may reverence, love, appreciate as gold, 
you may taste as having the sweetness of honey ; 
you may do everything in admiration of the 
Bible, but worship it. Roman Catholics have 
worshipped images, and statues, and rags, and 
relics, and even human heads — is it not strange 



Enoch's creed. 



493 



that they never thought of worshipping the 
Bible, which, after all, is the truest likeness of 
God ? They dared not worship it ; because, 
if they made the attempt, fire would have 
rushed from the mouth of this witness, and re- 
vealed to their confusion, " It is written, Thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only 
shalt thou serve." This blessed book is to be 
loved, to be cherished, to be studied ; but not 
to be worshipped. We can hear in it God's 
voice, as Adam heard it among the trees of the 
garden at eventide. It is that holy land over 
which we may walk, not needing a priest to 
keep us from falling. It is that deep, un- 
sounded, and luminous ocean, the bed of which 
is covered with gems for us. Let go your ca- 
thedrals, your confessions of faith, your articles, 
your liturgies, your psalm-books, your hymns, 
every thing you have ; but let go the Bible only 
with your life. It is the noblest bequest that 
God ever left to man. It is the right and pri- 
vilege of saints ; we must never give it up till we 
enter that blessed place where the Bible will be 
superseded, and we shall be no more taught 
from letters at second-hand, but from the lips 
of God, our Father, himself. 



494 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

We are to seek God, not only in the Bible, 
bat in the sanctuary. Seek him in the preach- 
er's sermon, in the reading of the chapters of 
the Bible. Seek the sermon that is truest, 
purest, and, in the sermon, Him who ought to 
be its text, the golden thread that runs through 
the whole, and gives its beauty and its cohe- 
sion to all. Do not hear the sermon in order 
to be pleased with it, or in order to criticise it, 
or in order to make comments on the preacher. 
The preacher's motive is not to lead you to his 
house, or to himself, or to his church, but to his 
God. That sermon which does not lead you, 
directly or indirectly, by inference or by pre- 
scription, to God the Saviour, is something very 
deficient, and needs to be studied again. You 
are to seek God in the sanctuary ; seek him in 
the sermon, and if, after patient and prayerful 
waiting, you do not find him, go there no more ; 
for the living bread is not there. 

Seek him diligently by prayer. What is 
prayer? Not counting beads, or saying Ave 
Marias, or repeating Pater-nosters ; still less 
making any or all a penance to man, and a pro- 
pitiation to God. Nor are we to make prayers 
to be seen of men, in corners of the streets ; 



Enoch's creed. 



495 



but because we have a deep sense of need : we 
are to pray just as that need dictates, or inclines. 
And whenever we pray in the congregation, in 
the school-room, in the prayer-meeting, we 
should use simple words. When men are in 
earnest discussion about a subject, they speak 
simply. I can bear bombastic sermons ; but 
turgid, loquacious prayers are to me most of- 
fensive. A person who expresses deep feel- 
ing, does not beat about for high-sounding 
words ; he uses instinctively the plain old Saxon 
words, that exactly and readily suit his purpose^ 
and convey most shortly and vividly the meaning 
they are charged with. Pray simply. We can- 
not speak too naturally to God. 

Seek God at the communion table. Because 
some have deified the Lord's supper, let us not 
go to the opposite extreme, and destroy it. Be- 
cause some have worshipped it, as if it were a 
god, let not us trample it under foot, as if it 
were an absolute rite. The poor Israelites in 
their caprice one day worshipped a brass ser- 
pent ; on the next day they broke it up, as if it 
were a thing of nought. We are not to cast 
away ordinances as if they were useless, nor to 
worship them as if they were gods. If we seek 



496 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

God aright in the sanctuary, we shall not only 
find him, but we shall be so absorbed by our 
sense of the magnificence of the God that is in 
it, that we shall put into its lowly but just place 
the ordinance that reveals him. 

We are to seek him in the world outside, in 
providence, in all the events of history, in all 
the chapters of individual biography ; in the 
sunny spots of human life, in its darkest eclipses, 
in its most solitary nooks ; when his blessing 
lights upon us, and when the cloud envelopes 
us; in all our joys, in all our sorrows. Seek 
him in the world he has made, into which the 
serpent indeed has entered, but over which God 
will yet reign from sea to sea, and from the 
river to the ends of the earth. God is in all 
things. God is, in spite of all appearances, the 
rewarder of them that come to him. 

Having thus explained the faith, I will show 
how it pleases God. 

Such faith as that which I have shown, im- 
plies a deep sense of one's own insignificance ; 
therefore God is well pleased with it. 

Secondly, this faith makes a man own that he 
has lost God, that he is far from him, that he 
must be diligently sought ; and, therefore, he 



Enoch's creed. 



497 



runs to him, and diligently seeks him ; and God 
is well pleased with it. 

Such faith empties man of all conceit in him- 
self; makes him own that he is blind, and poor, 
and naked, and that no creature can satisfy 
him, that no created thing can give him com- 
fort ; and such faith owns that God is able, all- 
sufficient, and all-willing to reward them that 
diligently seek him, and to manifest himself to 
them that believe in him. And without this 
self-emptying, self-denying, God-glorifying, 
Christ-magnifying faith, it is impossible to please 
God. It matters not, if we present him thou- 
sands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil, 
if we give him our firstborn for the sin of our 
soul, if we were to make the most weary pil- 
grimages and the most torturing penances ; all 
are utterly worthless. Without faith which con- 
fides in him as a Father, believes in him as a God, 
looks to h'm as a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek him, it is utterly impossible to please 
God. To please him is the noblest and the 
purest aim, and the most profitable ; for "what- 
soever things we ask," says John, " we receive 
them ; because we do those things that are 
pleasing in his sight ; " and if we please God, 

2 K 



498 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

" he will make our very enemies to be at peace 
with us." Thus, it is worth pleasing him, not 
by doing anything to propitiate him ; but by 
walking with him as a child walks with a father ; 
not as a slave with a tyrant master before whom 
he cringes, or as a maniac with his keeper of 
whom he is constantly afraid ; but as a child 
with a parent, in whose face he sees sunshine, 
and in whose footfall he hears the most welcome 
music, as Enoch walked. Thus walking, and 
thus believing, we please God, and are accepted 
of him, through Christ Jesus, the only Saviour 
of this illustrious member of the Antediluvian 
Church, and of all who believe, till the end of 
time. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS ; OR, UNSANCTIFIED 
JUDGMENTS. 

M Nor deem the irrevocable past 

As wholly wasted — wholly vain, 
If, rising on its wrecks, at last 

To something nobler we attain." 

" And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top 
may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scat- 
tered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came 
down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 
And the Lord said, Behold, the peopled one, and they have all one lan- 
guage ; and this they begin to do : and now nothing will be restrained from 
them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there 
confound their language, that they may not understand one another's 
speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face 
of all the earth : and they left off to build the city." — Gen. xi. 4 — 8. 

I have presented elsewhere in explanatory 
remarks those geographical, and, if I may use 
the word, ethnographical criticisms, which cast 
some light upon the mere history of the chapter 
which I have now read. But it is important 
that we should look at God's word, not only 
in the light of history and of science, but also 
in that light which shall make it practically 
2 k 2 



500 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

improving to our own hearts, and lives, and 
consciences. Therefore, I proceed to draw 
from the whole of the historical statement we 
have seen, those interesting and important spi- 
ritual lessons with which all Scripture is charg- 
ed, and which it needs only patient and prayerful 
investigation to educe for our comfort, edifica- 
tion, and progress. 

How true is God's portrait of humanity after 
the Flood ! how true was his portrait of hu- 
manity before it ! Before he sent that over- 
whelming judgment, he, who could not be 
mistaken, said, " Every imagination of the 
thoughts of man's heart is evil, and that con- 
tinually ; 55 and after the Flood had swept the 
earth, and punished the guilty, and saved by 
a special miracle them that loved him, God, 
looking still to man's heart, said, " Though the 
imagination of the thoughts of man's heart be 
still evil continually, yet I will not send an- 
other Flood to destroy the whole earth." You 
have humanity sketched before the Flood, and 
the crimes that then prevailed are the evidence 
how truly God spake. You have humanity 
sketched after the Flood, and the daring and 
impious experiment described in the eleventh 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS 



501 



chapter of Genesis, is the evidence how just 
that portrait was. 

We see from all this that the visible church 
and the true spiritual church are not co-exten- 
sive. It was only the visible church that was 
saved in the ark, they were not all members of 
the true spiritual church. Noah, and his wife 
and children, were the selected group saved by 
God's special providence, and by a specific mi- 
racle, from the desolating judgments that over- 
whelmed the rest of the world ; but in that little 
group there were some who were saved tempo- 
rally, but not spiritually and eternally ; for no 
sooner do they escape from the ark, than, forget- 
ful of all past mercies, despising all existent 
signs, they start again an experiment of impiety 
and wickedness only equalled by the folly in 
which they were permitted to conceive it. So is 
it still. In the smallest church all are not truly 
converted men. All that pass through baptismal 
water are not regenerated, just as all that were 
saved by the Flood were not saved by the Holy 
Spirit of God. He is not a Jew who is one out- 
wardly ; he is not a Christian who is one only 
baptized. There needs an inner work to make us 
members of the inner church, just as the outer 



502 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

rite can make us members of the outer eccle- 
siastical community. 

A very important lesson is taught here, — 
mere judgments are unequal to sanctify the 
heart, wicked men do not become better by the 
judgments that befall them. In short, the visit- 
ation that overtakes a person, has its fruits ac- 
cording to the prior character and heart of that 
person. In the case of God's people, all afflic- 
tions are chastisements, sweetened and sanctified 
to them. In the case of those who are not God's 
people, afflictions have only a hardening effect. 
It is the inner state of the individual prior to 
the affliction, that determines and surely pre- 
dicts what shall be the practical moral effect of 
that affliction. There is nothing in suffering, 
however severe, or however long, that is essen- 
tially sanctifying, otherwise the penalties of the 
lost would end in the purification of the lost. 
There is nothing in any suffering that can root 
out the fibres of the old heart, or neutralize its 
inherent poison. The Spirit of God only can 
do so. Affliction to the believer is mercy ; afflic- 
tion to the unbeliever is penal, and not paternal 
in any respect. We see this in the case of those 
who escaped in the ark ; what they had lost 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS 



503 



— for they had all lost friends and relatives — 
had no sanctifying effect upon them. 

In looking at this historical fact, it is worthy 
of remark^ there was no sin in building the 
tower — that was not the sin — there was no more 
sin in building the Tower of Babel, than there 
was in building the Pyramids, or any of the 
steeples of London. The outer act was not 
in itself sinful ; the construction of a city was 
rather a desirable thing : it is the seat of refine- 
ment, and of human progress. In the outer act 
itself there could hare been nothing that was 
sinful. Wherein then did the sin lie ? The same 
outward act may differ in moral character in 
different circumstances. It is the heart behind 
the hand that decides the nature and the charac- 
ter of its work ; it is the aim, the motive, the 
end, that indicates moral character. One man 
may build a church, and yet there may be no 
piety in the act ; another man may build a 
play-house, and there may be no impiety in it. 
It is when the work is in itself neutral, that 
you are to determine its moral character by the 
prior moral feelings of the artisan, or the me- 
chanic, or the genius that devised and constructs 
it. In building this tower, the sin was in the 



504 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

aim, the end, and object which they had in view. 
Let us investigate what these were, and then we 
shall be able to calculate the moral nature of the 
workmen engaged in this enterprise. 

We have only to listen to the original invita- 
tion, — " Come, let us build us a city and a tower, 
whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us 
make us a name," that is, get national celebrity 
or national glory, — to see that this was their 
grand, predominating, and absorbing object. 
But has this actuating motive perished or been 
buried amid the ruins of the Tower of Babel ? 
Alas, it has not. How many study, not in order 
to be useful to man and serviceable in the cause 
of Christ, but to get a name ! Many an author 
writes books, many a senator makes speeches, 
many a statesman constructs cabinets, many a 
soldier draws the sword, many a sailor walks 
the deck, not from patriotic motives, or with 
Christian designs, but to get a name. As Dr, 
Chalmers well said, " Each of us has his tower 
of Babel, which we are continually building, 
and never learning wisdom from the experience 
of the past." It is no evidence that the thing 
is good to say that any of these things— to be a 
soldier, a sailor, an author, a preacher, or an 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



505 



orator — is good in itself: we must mark trie aim 3 
motive, and object in view. It matters not 
what the thing be, if it be not in itself sinful ; 
but it does matter what our end, object, and 
aim are in doing it. There may possibly be less 
sin in building a play-house to obtain a name, 
than in building a church for the same end. In 
building a play-house to get a name, it is the 
world's workmen doing the world's bidding to 
obtain the world's applause ; but in building a 
church to get a name, it is adding hypocrisy to 
the world's crime. Many a one founds an 
hospital, not because he loves man the more, 
but because he loves his own name better. 
Another man builds a college, not because he 
loves the education of the young, but in order 
that his name may be mentioned with praise by 
the youth that are to study there. In the old 
mediaeval ages, thev built churches and monas- 
teries in order that they might have masses 
said for their souls ; but in our days we build 
colleges, and found hospitals, not to get masses 
said for our souls, but to get praises added to 
our names : and all the difference is, that they 
did their acts for superstitious ends, and we do 
ours for sceptical ends — both are Babels, that, 



506 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

built or building, will perish, and overwhelm 
the builders in their ruins. How much more 
beautiful is the description of our blessed Lord, 
—when you found hospitals, when you do alms, 
when you build colleges, take heed that "ye 
do not these things to be seen of men, 5 ' that 
ye do not do them to get a name ; otherwise 
ye have no reward of your Father who is in 
heaven. Therefore, when ye do your alms, 
sound not a trumpet before you, or, translated 
into modern language, do not put a paragraph 
in the newspaper ; " but when thou doest thine 
alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right 
hand doeth." How intensely expressive ! Let 
us do it so purely from a right motive, so truly 
to a right end, so thoroughly in the right name, 
that there shall be no alloy of any other end 
or motive whatever. When we reflect — the 
best and holiest of us all — on all the side-ends 
and by-ends, the sub-motives and under-objects, 
that we have in view in the best things we do, 
in the purest things we devise, in the noblest 
acts of sacrifice we make, we must all bow be- 
fore God and say, " Enter not into judgment, 
O Lord, with thy servants, for in thy sight no 
man living can be justifieda" It is therefore too 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



507 



true that the Christian, if he does not build a 
Babel with the precise Babel ends, and on the 
literal Babel foundation, yet has designs that 
have the old alloy, just as our language has in 
it the traces of the old confusion — it is not 
merely that our language testifies to the dis- 
ruption at Babel, but our hearts testify to it too. 
How often do we see one apparently wrapped 
and absorbed in what is Christian, who yet 
has no Christian motive at all ! I have seen 
the mountain eagle almost beating the blue 
firmament with his outspread wings, and I have 
thought, as I gazed at his magnificent ascent, 
that he was soaring towards the sky and the 
realms of purer and of brighter day ; but I had 
only to wait a little to find out, that though he 
seemed to soar so high and aspire so purely, his 
bright eye was upon the quarry all the while, 
that was on the ground below. So it is with 
many a one, with loud pretensions, high-sound- 
ing profession, great Christian aims avowed and 
declared, while he seems to be soaring upward 
with his outspread wings, and seeking a loftier 
sphere and a nobler land, he is really looking 
down to what will bring the greatest profit to 
his purse, or the noblest credit to his name. 



508 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Thus we have the Babel spirit mixing with us, 
thus we have Babel motives still actuating us. 

But there were more defects than these in the 
conduct of the Babel-builders. One great de- 
fect was, they left out all thought of God. It 
was, perhaps, well that they did so, because 
their object was bad ; but still, if the object had 
been perfectly good, to leave out all thought of 
God in undertaking so magnificent a scheme, 
was, to say the least of it, extremely atheistic. 
But do we not in some degree inherit this ? We 
look at means, and money, and talent, as if these 
were the only things, and we forget that means-, 
money, talent, will all be blasted, if they are put 
in the place of God. How often do we under- 
take missionary enterprises, and new schemes of 
philanthropy and usefulness to the poor, or for 
the spiritual enlightenment of the benighted, 
and forget that the end is to be achieved, not by 
the multitude of means, or the weight of money, 
or the splendour of patronage, but directly by 
the blessing of Almighty God ! No scheme can 
prosper, from which this element is exhausted, 
and no right scheme will fail, however meagre 
at its commencement, in which this element is 
truly and heartily recognised. " I shall die in 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS 



509 



my nest." said one. and he found it otherwise. 
" Soul, take thine ease." said another, " thou 
hast much goods laid up for many days/'' and 
that night his soul was required of him. To- 
morrow shall be as this day/ 3 say some; " I 
shall multiply my days." say others : and their 
inward thought is that their houses shall con- 
tinue^ and their names shall be upon them, and 
yet the Lord has decreed. " Except the Lord 
watch the city, the watchman watcheth in vain." 
It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps : 
it is not by might, nor by power, but by my 
Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Thus, one of 
the Babel sins was leaving God out of the 
enterprise. Let us ask ourselves. Do we leave 
out God in our enterprises ? or 3 Do we intro- 
duce him into all ? We are not only to die in 
the Lord; but we are to live in the Lord : 
and those who hope to die in the Lord, should 
know that there is no likelihood that this 
hope will be realized, except they now live in 
the Lord. It is right to marry, but it is a 
Babel marriage unless it be marrying in the 
Lord. It is right to live, but it is a Babel life 
unless to live be Christ. It is necessary to die, 
but such death will be an ominous one unless 



510 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

we die in him in whom we live, that is, in the 
Lord. We have only to read the chart of his- 
tory, to see that, whenever nations have for- 
gotten God, God has sooner or later forsaken 
them. How much have we seen of this, to go 
back no farther than 1845 ! In that year the 
Babel spirit made the whole nations one vast 
speculating body. Soon afterwards, God look- 
ed down, and confusion and wreck fell upon 
all. Soon after, we thought we could defy the 
seasons, and have bread, and plenty to spare ; 
God looked down, smote the element in which 
we trusted, and all was confusion again. In an- 
other year, we thought we had made such pro- 
gress in all our sanatory arrangements, that we 
might repel triumphantly the incursions of pes- 
tilence and plague ; God looked down, another 
year and a nation's heart almost stood still with 
terror. In 1851, some were predicting a mil- 
lennium, who had been talking of it for ten 
years before; and others were enjoying, as we 
all properly enjoyed, the spectacle of peace, 
which we hoped to be the earnest of peace with 
all the nations of the earth : no sooner did 1851 
close with the hopes and pledges of peace, and 
the interchanges of love, and 1852 begin, than 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



511 



war, and rumours of war, and preparations for 
war, were heard on every side. How earn- 
estly is God teaching us to guard against the 
spirit of the Babel-builders, and in our antici- 
pations, our arrangements, our schemes, and 
enterprises, never to forget to add, in spirit if 
not in letter, " If the Lord will." By this I 
do not mean that we are to proclaim these 
words on all occasions, in our intercourse ; but 
that in our thoughts there is to be the under- 
current of feeling, " If the Lord will in all 
our conversations the under-tone, " If the Lord 
will ; in all our schemes, and enterprises, and 
prospects, the inner feeling, " If the Lord will 
in other words, admitting all other elements 
that are good, but never excluding the element 
that is essential — God's glory, God's presence, 
and our dependence on him, and responsibility 
to him. 

But, perhaps, in these Babel-builders there 
was worse than simply leaving out God ; there 
was, I fear, not simply atheism, which is being 
without God ; but there was, I fear, antitheism, 
or opposition to God. They knew God's or- 
dinance, which was, that they should go forth 
according to the arrangements made with Shem 



512 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and Ham and Japheth, and cover and replen- 
ish the whole earth ; but they did not like to 
go forth upon unknown lands, and into strange 
latitudes ; and therefore, though they heard 
sounding in their ears the bidding of that God 
who had saved them from the deluge, they 
determined to defy his thunders, to brave his 
threatenings, and to build a tower which should 
be a rallying centre for the earth's population to 
gather round ; and so high, in all probability, 
that no second deluge, which they supposed 
possible, should reach its top; and so strong, 
that no hostile force should be able to overturn 
it. Leaving out God is atheism; acting con- 
trary to God is antitheism. But they found that 
whatever is attempted against God recoils upon 
them who make the attempt. One cannot read 
the history of the past, or any department of 
that history, without" seeing that, whenever man 
has dared to provoke the controversy, whether 
he or God shall prevail, Babel confusion has 
been his doom, and the manifested glory and so- 
vereignty of God the great lesson ; it may be, 
not permanently, but surely and deeply taught. 

At all events, whether it was hostility to God, 
defiance of him, or simply omission of God and 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 513 

forgetfulness of him, there was in their whole 
scheme thorough unbelief. God's word told 
them that there should be no second Flood, but 
their wicked hearts said, We do not believe 
God's word, and therefore we will make pre- 
parations to meet a contingency still possible. 
God's word again told them that, as often as they 
saw that sacramental symbol span the firma- 
ment, and display its beauteous arch, they 
should have a pledge for their assurance, not 
for God's, that no second Flood should come ; 
but they said, No, we will not believe that sign, 
and therefore we will act just as if there were 
no such promise confirmed by any such pledge. 
Do we ever feel and manifest this spirit ? There 
is in the Lord's supper a standing pledge, like 
the rainbow, that Jesus suffered, and that God 
spared him not, but delivered him up for us all. 
Do we, notwithstanding, sometimes doubt that 
fact, and feel as if God had never given a 
Saviour. ' God says, "Behold, the Lord 
cometh : he cometh with clouds, and every eye 
shall see him, and they also that pierced him." 
Do we not sometimes doubt, and say, " To- 
morrow shall be as this day," and, £: Where is 
the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers 
2 L 



514 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

fell asleep, all things continue as they were from 
the beginning ? " Such is the unbelief of the 
Babel-builders, and if their sin be ours, for re- 
tribution exists on earth as truly as it will exist 
hereafter, their punishment will be ours also. 
Whatever is undertaken without God, or in 
disbelief of his word, or in defiance of his 
power, will never prosper. In national con- 
stitutions, in national legislation, in the founda- 
tion of palaces, and in the building of cottages, 
in drawing up great charters for a people, and 
in writing small leases for a house, the true 
element of coherence, strength, endurance, 
safety, prosperity, honour, is the recognition of 
God, and in so recognising him, the feeblest 
shall be strong, the fewest shall be conquerors. 
All Scripture, confirmed by all history, shows 
that institutions laid in God are lasting as 
the stars, institutions built in defiance of him 
perish and dissolve like frost-work in a night. 
Let us therefore carry, into the sequestered 
nooks of private life, what we ought to see de- 
veloped in the greatest and most conspicuous 
places of public life— a sense of dependence on 
Him who looks on. Let the merchant sit down 
at his desk with as solemn feeling as that where- 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



515 



with, he sits down at the Lord's table. Let him 
enter his counting-house with a sense of respon- 
sibility to God, as real as that with which he 
enters the sanctuary ; and let him write his 
ledger with just as deep and sensitive a mind, 
as that with which he reads his Bible. I believe 
that a besetting heresy of the day is not Calvin- 
ism, nor Arminianism, nor any other ism, but 
the practical separation of what is religious, and 
what is secular. I never can accept such separa- 
tion. Education without religion is no educa- 
tion at all. Business without religion is Babel- 
building, and it will have a Babel issue. So 
minute is the requirement of God's word, that 
he says, " Whatever ye do, whether ye eat or 
drink, do all to the glory of God." But the 
besetting and the very popular idea is, religion 
is religion, and it is fit for the church ; business 
is business, and it only is fit for the market. 
Most certainly, do not carry your business into 
your religion, and make religion a matter of 
profit and of loss ; but you ought to carry your 
religion into your business, that your business 
may be beautiful before God, and just and 
honourable in the sight of man. When we 
come to the sanctuary, we come to be taught 



516 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

what religion is, and how deep, and how high, 
and how far religion ought to reach. When 
we go out into the counting-house, the market, 
the warehouse, the place where mammon's traffic 
is, we set out to show how religion can make us 
to differ. The merchant who drinks in the les- 
sons of the Bible on the Sunday, will not go to 
the Royal Exchange and preach there ; but he 
will in his transactions make it be felt by others 
that there is such honesty about that man, such 
integrity, right-heartedness, and truth, that he 
must have some spring to feed it, some hidden 
manna, some source of persistency and power 
that we know not of ; we will go where that 
man goes, his people shall be our people, and 
no doubt also his minister ours. The minister 
who has some twenty or thirty thorough Chris- 
tianized men going forth into the world, acting 
out their Christianity in the world's business 
without show, pretence, or talk, or cant, or any- 
thing approaching to it, will soon have a crowded 
congregation, because other people will inquire 
into the secret of this superiority to all around, 
and they will go to learn where and what that 
secret is, and they will say at last what some 
said to the woman of Samaria, "Now we 



THE BABEL- BUILDERS. 



believe, not because of thy saying ; for we have 
heard him ourselves." 

We learn another lesson from the Babel- 
builders ; whatever man attempts without God, 
or in spite of God, or in disobedience of God, 
or in disbelief of God, in order to attain a given 
end, is almost sure to issue in the opposite. 
These men set about building this tower to do 
what ? To u get a great name," to become the 
illustrious engineers and architects of the world, 
so that after-ages should quote them as men of 
the grandest genius, and the greatest powers, 
and their' name should be pronounced with 
veneration when their dust was sleeping in the 
grave below. That was their design, this was 
their object — did they accomplish it I Instead of 
gaining an illustrious name, they are by-words ; 
when we see some wild enthusiast fail, we call 
him a Babel-builder; when we meet a fanatic 
attempting some wild scheme, we say, he is a 
Babel-builder. They have got fame, but it is 
the fame of contempt: and the fragments of 
their tower, and the memorials of its erection, 
still endure, to show that they who set out to get 
reputation in spite of God, will only get shame, 
discredit, and contempt. But this was not their 



518 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

only object — they had another in view. It was 
to prevent themselves being scattered over all 
the face of the earth ; it was to be a central 
rallying tower to retain the unity of the masses. 
Did they accomplish it ? Just the reverse — the 
very thing they deprecated was the very thing 
they provoked. The very scattering that they 
raised the tower to prevent, was the very scat- 
tering — violently and not gently, as it would 
have been — which they really brought in all 
its severity upon themselves. How truly does 
Obadiah speak of them when he says, " The 
pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou 
that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose 
habitation is high ; that saith in his heart, "Who 
shall bring me down to the ground ? Though 
thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou 
set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring 
thee down, saith the Lord." God resisteth the 
proud, he giveth grace to the humble. We do 
not need a space of five hundred yards to build 
our Babel ; in many a nook and sequestered 
place is a tower of Babel attempted still. Who 
has not felt, more or less keenly, when you have 
set your heart upon something, without taking 
in the sense of God's presence, or your respon- 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



519 



sibility to him 3 or the contingency that he might 
interpose, and when yon have gained the very 
thing that your heart was set upon, how often 
it has proved another thorn in your pillow, a 
corrosive and a cankering care in your heart ! 
Many a man has set his heart upon making a 
fortune soon, without a thought about God, not 
by taking means that are dishonest, but atheistic : 
he steadily sets his heart upon the enterprise, 
and God allows him to succeed. What is the 
result of it ? Just after he has made the for- 
tune, he is laid upon a sick bed from which he 
never rises. I have seen this in its extremest de- 
gree, when the fortune was magnificent, beyond 
counting. Or you have set you heart upon a 
fortune, and you have obtained it, and learned 
how unsatisfactory it is, and that you have been 
spending your money for that which looked like 
bread, but which is not bread, and your labour 
for that which you thought would satisfy, and, lo, 
it satisfleth not. Many have made a competency 
in which all seemed to be prosperous and merry 
as a marriage bell, and the greatness of their 
wealth occasioned them such torment, disputes, 
bitterness of heart, and anxiety of mind, that they 
have wished to God that they had never had a 



520 THE CHUKCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

fortune at all." I heard of one who set his heart 
upon riches with all his might — an irreligious, 
atheistic, ungodly man : he made the fortune, 
and one day he was met going to commit sui- 
cide — such was the satisfaction it afforded him. 
Whatever we attempt against God, or without 
God, either will be contradicted in its issue, or 
if we obtain that which we had in view, that 
object will be a thorn, a calamity, and a curse. 
A crown reached in the face of God will be but 
a burning circlet; a throne, or a presidential 
chair, attained by violation of the laws of God 
will be but a restless seat ; reputation and re- 
nown achieved in the spite of God will be poor 
enjoyment to him who has it. That little word 
" God," the exponent of a grand element in a 
man's heart, gives vigour to the hand that wins 
the fortune, and it gives repose to the heart to 
enjoy that fortune after it is won. Therefore, 
merchants, tradesmen, soldiers, sailors, all men, 
whatever be your position on earth, or your pro- 
fession, seek first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all other things shall be 
added unto you. How beautiful is this ! It is 
like the law of gravitation — all falls under it, 
clusters around it, becomes holy and pros- 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



521 



perons just by its being in the heart and actu- 
ating all. 

All humanity is suffering under the curse in- 
curred by the Babel-builders. We need not 
quarrel with that great law of God's providen- 
tial dealings visiting the sins of the fathers upon 
the children. You need not say, it is unjust. 
I do not stop to discuss its justice ; I assert 
simply, it is a fact, and a fact written in the 
Bible j and acted out in providence every day, 
The question is not, Is the thing true ? for we 
feel it ; and therefore to quarrel with the Bible 
for asserting it, is to quarrel with God's word 
for speaking truth. These Babel-builders began 
then 4 tower in defiance of God, or in unbelief of 
God ; their tongues were confounded ; literally, 
they became no longer of one lip. This judg- 
ment strikes us ; for every missionary who de- 
parts to preach to the heathen, goes out cramped 
and scathed by the curse of Babel. He has to 

sit down three or four years to learn the lan- 

j 

guage, and, after he has learned it, we know 
too well that the speaking with foreign idioms, 
and with all the deficiencies of foreign habits, to 
a heathen people, is preseuting the gospel with 
the least element of power, and in its least fa- 



522 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

vourable aspect. We have in our experience 
every day to deal with the great fact before us 
— the confusion of tongues. And what is the 
cause of most men's quarrels? Not so much 
that their hearts are really at issue the one with 
the other, as that the language in which they 
unfold and express them is misunderstood the 
one by the other. Whenever we hear great 
ecclesiastical quarrels between bishops and pres- 
byters, synods and general assemblies, we hear 
the undertone of Babel in the midst of all— 
the quarrel is less about things, and more about 
modes of expression. In the case of Calvinism 
and Arminianism, — hear a truly converted Ar- 
minian and Calvinist pray together, and we 
shall find that they pray the same ; hear them 
preach, they preach very much the same ; and 
we find that their logomachy is rather in the 
terms employed — that it is a Babel dispute — that 
they are at heart really and vitally one. The 
reason of our quarrels generally is more in our 
expression of our meaning, than in our meaning 
itself. Every man has not the power of express- 
ing his thoughts. Some men have such power 
of speaking, that they can speak for hours with- 
out a particle of meaning. Other men have great 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



523 



stores of thought, but such inability to utter it, 
that they cannot speak five minutes fluently. And 
when we know what mighty varieties there are 
between these two extremes, we shall learn to 
forgive those that differ, and lament the Babel 
curse that is found in our divisions, and we shall 
pray for what I now refer to, that future and 
coming Pentecost, of which the last was but an 
instalment, when, not the earth shall be of one 
tongue, for that would be monotony, but when 
all men shall speak all tongues as they speak 
their mother-tongue, and then there will be 
unity and peace. Pentecost came only in the 
first drops ; the great shower, I believe, is yet 
to come. At Babel, separation was the curse ; 
at Pentecost, separation was toned into a bless- 
ing. At Babel, men were scattered mechanically 
by the different tongues that instantly broke 
out ; at Pentecost, men were morally united, 
though mechanically separated. Let us then 
pray for that blessed Pentecost, when God shall 
pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and all shall 
see eye to eye, and all shall be taught of God, 
and great shall be the peace of his children. 

How truly do we see at each stage of the 
book of Genesis, God's presence — God reigns. 



524 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

He taught mankind, that though man had sin- 
ned and the world had strayed, yet he had not 
given up the reins of government, nor had ever 
left all to chance. I have no doubt that the 
Babel-builders fancied that God, having satis- 
fied his justice, as they would call it, by the 
deluge, had returned to repose, and left the 
world to manage itself ; but he interposed to 
show that he held the reins, that he is throned 
above the floods, and that he will restrain the 
wrath of man, and make the remainder of it 
praise him. 

Unity in itself is not necessarily a blessing. 
The Romish church boasts always of its unity. 
Now there never was a finer specimen of unity 
upon earth than the unity of the Babel-builders. 
They were all of one tongue, they were all of 
one mind, they had all one purpose, and they 
set to work shoulder to shoulder to accom- 
plish that great enterprise. Therefore, mere 
unity is not necessarily a blessing. It is what 
men are united in, that is the main thing, not 
the mere fact that men are united. Better 
differ in the details of a holy enterprise that we 
seek to accomplish, than be united in a wicked 
enterprise, on which we have set our hearts. 



THE BABEL-BUILDERS. 



525 



Where there is unity without truth, there is on- 
ly conspiracy. Where there is unity in truth, 
there is no doubt a blessing. And certainly, 
when bad men combine, good men should 
always try to unite. But, never forget, our 
union will be in the ratio of the truth that we 
hold, and only through the truth can we be 
made one ; for the wisdom that is from above is 
first pure, then it is peaceable. 

And in the next place, let us learn from this, 
too, how inefficient a channel of truth tradition 
is. They had no Bible in those days ; they did 
not perhaps strictly need one, men lived so 
long — for it seems that even after the Flood the 
patriarchal ages of the antediluvians were con- 
tinued, gradually lessening until the days of 
Moses — that truth had every chance, if I may 
use the expression, of remaining undiluted ; yet 
these builders had lost every vestige of truth, 
and departed from every announcement that 
God had made ; they atheistically lived and 
atheistically perished. 

Let us set our hearts upon building, not a 
Babel, but on building up living stones in the 
holy temple of the living God. Let us also 
anticipate that " city that hath foundations," for 



526 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Babel had none, " whose builder and maker is 
God : " which hath no need of the sun, nor of 
the moon ; for the Lord God Almighty and the 
Lamb are the light thereof : in which there shall 
enter nothing that defileth, and the inhabitant 
shall not say, I am sick ; and in which the de- 
scendants of Shem, and Ham, and Japheth shall 
meet, because they have previously met in 
Christ ; and so shall they be for ever with the 
Lord, in whom all the building, fitly framed to- 
gether, groweth unto an holy temple in the 
Lord ; in whom may we also be builded together 
for an habitation of God through the Spirit. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 

fl Onward as we trace 
God's oracles, redemption is the point 
To which they all converge." 

<; For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
—John iu. 16. 

These words, " God so loved the world, that 
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have 
eternal life," constitute at once the very sim- 
plest, and yet the most comprehensive summary 
of Christian truth in the whole word of God. It 
is the centre and the circumference of all 
Christianity. The most precious truths are 
folded up in it as in a beautiful and living bud, 
and they are only developed and expanded in 
all the pages of the writings of evangelists, the 
epistles of apostles, and the preaching and ser- 
mons of faithful ministers of Christ Jesus. It 
was the faith of Adam, Abel, Enoch, and Noah. 



528 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



Its truth was in their hearts, as in ours. It was 
the creed of the Church before the Flood. 

It assumes one great proposition which all 
Christians admit, — that the world is in ruins. 
The Church before the Flood saw the ruins. I 
do not stop to dispute, or to try to gauge the mea- 
sure and the extent of these ruins. It is one of 
the plainest propositions in the word of God, 
that all have sinned, that all are involved in one 
common catastrophe, that all are perishing from 
God, "by nature children of wrath, even as 
others," without any distinction of any practical 
value as to a future and eternal state. The 
imaginations of man's heart are evil. This same 
book reveals another truth just as plainly, and as 
distinctly ; a fact brought out before the Flood 
also — that man cannot recover himself ; that it 
is not in man that walketh to direct his steps ; 
it is still less in man that liveth to quicken his 
own dead heart. It reveals in the plainest terms, 
that for 4000 years before the Christian era, and 
for 1800 years since, society has been attempting 
to regenerate itself, and it has all alopg been a 
gigantic failure ; and the only evidences of pro- 
gress, the only traces of advancement, are those 
patches of beautiful sunshine which are the di- 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 529 

rect or the indirect rays of that Sim of right- 
eousness who has arisen with healing under his 
wings. The only prescription which the Bible 
urges now, or ever urged since the Fall, for this 
great calamity, is faith in him whom God pro- 
mised once, and has given since, and by faith in 
whom we have eternal life. Nothing better was 
ever conceived by man ; nothing more is re- 
quired by God. We need what we may have, 
salvation through the blood of Christ ; nothing 
less will suit the greatest saint, nothing more is 
needed for the very chiefest of sinners. " God 
so loved the world, that he gave 55 this, which 
alone is adequate — " his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." 

But before we open up these words, I pause a 
few minutes in order to meet difficulties that 
occur to oneself, and to others that do not ven- 
ture to express them, and that have been urged 
by those who reject the gospel as reasons why 
they must refuse it at its very commencement. 
It has been said, Might not God have saved all 
this vast expenditure by simply preventing man 
from sinning, and the earth from falling ? We 
answer, What God might have done it is not for 

2 M 



530 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

human wisdom to decide ; what God can do is 
not my rule of faith, but what God has written 
in his blessed and holy word. These are specu- 
lations in which we are lost the moment that we 
try to fathom them. But still there are some 
thoughts that may modify the force of such an 
objection, wherever its weight may be felt. God 
did not make man as we now find him, nor the 
earth as it now is. If we believe the Bible, the 
very reverse is the fact. The whole Church be^ 
fore the Flood is my proof. God made man at 
first perfectly holy, and equally happy, and the 
earth so beautiful, that he, in whose sight the 
angels themselves are stained with imperfections, 
and the heavens unclean, pronounced it, then 
and there, to be " very good. 5 ' No man can say 
where sin came from, nor tell how it is in the 
world ; yet we ourselves know, because we feel, 
that it is in the world : but we are thoroughly 
satisfied, that whatever source it came from, it 
came not from the bosom of God. God is not 
responsible for it. It is a jar in the glorious 
harmony, a foul blot on his fair and beautiful 
workmanship, it is not his doing ; but — bright 
and blessed prophecy ! — this discord shall yet 
be resolved into harmony, this dark blot shall 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 531 

be fully expunged^ and the earth shall look 
forth more fresh, and beautiful, and glorious, 
than when first it came from the plastic hands 
of him that made it. In the second place, in 
looking at this objection, it is necessary to ob- 
serve, man was left to the freedom of his own will. 
If God had created man with a disposition to sin, 
with an inherent liking and bias to it, the respon- 
sibility would seem to me, with our present in- 
formation, to have rested upon God ; but so far 
from making man with a bias to evil, he made 
him perfectly holy and happy, with every pos- 
sible dissuasive from doing evil, and with every 
conceivable inducement to persist in the love of 
God, and in allegiance to his law. True, God 
might have made man a machine ; he might have 
made him inanimate or unfeeling like a railway 
engine, the groove of which he had settled, and 
the course of which was as sure and fixed as 
rising sun and setting stars ; but this would not 
have been man ; such a being would have been 
below even the brute. God made us with glorious 
sovereignty, invested with absolute freedom of 
will, free to retain our allegiance, free to abjure it. 
Because man was made so great at his original 
creation, he was left therefore so free in his elec- 
2 m 2 



532 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tion of the good, or his preference of the evil. 
And therefore when any complain that God did 
not make us otherwise, they complain that God 
gave us what they now insist upon as their su- 
preme and noble prerogative, — freedom, inde- 
pendence, election of the good, or election of 
the evil. In the next place, it may turn out — 
nay, we know from Scripture it will turn out, that 
greater glory will redound to God, and greater 
good to the vast universe, by permitting man to 
fall, and providing for man such a recovery, 
than if God had made man in the way, and after 
the type, which we have so faintly indicated. 
But will not some of the human race perish for 
ever, whereas if man had been made otherwise, 
none would have been lost ? But why do they 
perish? Not one soul^ as far as we are con- 
cerned, will be lost, except for neglecting or re- 
jecting the great salvation ; and therefore, if man 
perishes, he goes to perdition with the respon- 
sibility resting wholly upon himself. Not one 
soul will Satan be able to present throughout 
eternity as an exact trophy of his success in 
seducing Adam and Eve from their first alle- 
giance. Every lost soul in misery, as far as re- 
lates to us, will be there a conscious, deliberate, 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 533 

guilty suicide, one that rushed to perdition in 
spite of a thousand remonstrances that urged 
him to turn and flee to God for safety and for 
forgiveness. It may be, that what has taken 
place will end in greater glory to God, in 
greater happiness to the creature, than if man 
had been made, what we think he would have 
been so unnaturally made, a mere machine, and 
incapable of any originating movement from 
within. Another thought deserves our consi- 
deration : this world is one amid ten thousand, 
or ten thousand times ten thousand. We do not 
believe that those vast orbs which the telescope 
brings within our vision are empty, or solid, 
or mere masses of matter only. It is probable 
there are worlds far greater than our own, teem- 
ing with vast populations ; and it may be, that 
what is done on this orb, like what is enacted 
in Westminster with reference to the whole em- 
pire, is done on one great and royal spot, that 
the rest of the orbs of the universe may learn 
new lessons of the love, the mercy, the justice, 
the forbearance of God ; our world may be 
the lesson-book of the universe, the instructress 
of all creation. If this be so, we may dis- 
cover that there was a wisdom, and a love, and 



584 THE CHTJUCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

a goodness, and a propriety, if we may use that 
expression , in what has taken place, which does 
not strike us at first sight, but which we shall 
spend eternity in learning, ever as we turn over 
a new leaf of the everlasting book, and make a 
new step in the endless progression which is 
our happy and blessed destiny. 

The whole provision of the gospel, we read, 
is exclusively of God. Man never conceived 
it, nor ever devised it. The great law of the 
gospel economy is, man shall receive all the be- 
nefit, God shall receive all the glory. It is a 
religion that came from God, and therefore it 
will carry man back to God. We never should 
forget, that only a religion that comes from God 
will ever conduct the creature to God ; the 
origin of this religion of ours is announced in 
the sentence, " God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believetK in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." 

These words lead us to conclude, that such 
and so great was God's love to sinners, that 
he was ready to stoop to any sacrifice short 
of the sacrifice of holiness, justice, truth, to re- 
deem us. He saw a race self-ruined, weltering 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 



535 



in its ruins, unable to restore or reinstate itself 
in its lost orbit. He longed and desired to 
save it. His first emotion toward us was that 
of paternal love ; what renders this love trie 
more striking is, that He — the offended party 
— first loved, and made the first movement 
toward those that were the offending and the 
unrepentant criminals. This is the greatness of 
that love, that he who justly was angry, who 
justly might have consumed us, loved us — loved 
those, whose only desert was penalty, whose 
only merit was punishment, whose extinction 
from the universe would have never been felt, 
whose accession to the choirs of the blessed can 
add no splendours to God's throne, and give no 
happiness additional to God himself. Yet this 
sacrifice, whatever it was, as we proceed to ex- 
plain, he was prepared to make as the exponent 
of his love, and to open a way for the egress of 
that love, that we — rebellious sinners, ruined, 
careless, thoughtless, perishing — might become 
the subjects of an everlasting salvation. 

If God so loved us, and so intensely desired 
to save us, why did he not do it at once ? There 
was a great difficulty. The Bible tells us so, — for 
the Bible is not simply the statement of proposi- 



536 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

tions, but an appeal to our judgments as to the 
reasonableness of those propositions. The whole 
Epistle to the Romans is not simply a proclama- 
tion of great truths, but it is a vindication of 
those truths to man's judgment, and in the 
hearing of man's conscience. This difficulty 
would seem to be something of this kind : how 
God should receive to his bosom those that 
had fallen and sinned against him equally with 
those who retained their first and pristine alle- 
giance, and served and glorified him to the end. 
How shall God manifest himself the just Sove- 
reign of the universe, the holy Governor of all its 
orbs, and yet look upon the guilty with the same 
complacency with which he looks upon the 
innocent and the unfallen. It would be a sorry 
law that has no fixity ; it would be a no less 
sorry law that has no rewards and punishments. 
You say, God is omnipotent. So he is ; but 
although he can save a sinner in spite of sin, he 
cannot save a sinner in spite of his own holy 
law. God cannot cease to be good, and just, 
and holy, and faithful, and true. The grand 
difficulty is met, and mastered, and solved in the 
great fact enunciated in these words, " God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 537 

Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." 

Grant the propriety of the principle of a 
substitute, and all is plain : but whether you 
grant its propriety or not, it is certainly de- 
clared in the Bible as fact, that Jesus Christ 
took upon him our whole responsibility, stood 
in our stead, and dealt with God, and God 
dealt with him, as if all humanity had been 
compressed, and personated, and represented 
in him. I am not discussing the propriety 
of this, or whether it commends itself to our 
conscience or not, because it is fact, yet a fact 
that has analogies and shadows in the world, 
that one may be a substitute for another in 
some things ; and if in some small things that 
come within our horizon, why not in that great 
thing which appertains to the word of God, and 
the salvation of lost humanity ? But whether 
our conscience approve it or not, it is true, that 
he, the spotless Lamb, arrayed himself in our 
tainted fleece ; that he, the Holy One, was treat- 
ed as if the greatest sinner ; that he who was 
infinitely pure, endured all that we incurred as 
transgressors, obeyed and did all that we owed 
to God as creatures ; and by reason of what he 



588 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

suffered, our sufferings are dispensed with ; and 
by reason of what he did, our doing, as a title, 
is completely superseded, for his is ours. In 
Christ's death we have deliverance from the 
curse. In Christ's active obedience we have a 
title to the blessing ; and by God so loving us, 
as to give such a sum to be the expression of 
that love, he has made a provision by which he 
may be seen to be just ; for he has not shrunk 
from inflicting the penalty denounced upon a 
single sinner ; and holy, for he is seen so hating 
sin, that even when that sin was upon the 
only begotten Son, he spared him not ; so true, 
that the soul that sinned has died; so loving, 
that he provided this glorious Substitute, that 
we, the otherwise hopeless sinners, might go 
free. I see, therefore, in the gospel, a scheme 
that commends itself to my judgment as answer- 
ing all the great designs of God, vindicating his 
character, placing it in the most beautiful and 
glorious light, and bringing down to us a sal- 
vation inexhaustible as the years of eternity 
itself. 

All this originated from his love. It is not 
said, that, because Christ has thus endured what 
we deserved, because Christ has thus done what 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 



539 



we could not do, therefore has God loved us ; 
but that all Christ did is the fruit of God's lore. 
He loved us, and therefore Christ came ; it is 
not, Christ came, and therefore God loved us. 
God loved Adam just as much when he lay amid 
the "wrecks of dismantled Paradise, as when he 
walked amid the flowers and unblighted fruits 
of Paradise in its first glory. God's love is the 
same to-day that it was before Adam fell. He 
so loved Adam in his first estate, that he clothed 
the earth with beauty, and made his palace to 
be the admiration of the universe. He so loved 
Adam in his ruin, that he gave, as the expres- 
sion of his love, " his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." He so loved Adam in 
his innocence, that he made every thing a min- 
istry to his pleasure. He so loved Adam in 
his ruin, that he touched the earth with the 
blood of his incarnate Son, that poor lost 
Adam's sins might be forgiven, and that he, the 
refugee and rebel, might be restored to his lost 
and forfeited allegiance. That same love that 
rolls, like an illuminated sea, in the realms of the 
blessed, one wave of which, sweeping over Para- 
dise, made its immortal soil burst into blossom, 



540 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

and fruit, and beauty, sent down its richest em- 
bodiment when it crowned all its previous ex- 
pressions by this last and greatest one — the gift 
of Christ to be our Saviour. 

In this provision of Christ Jesus, salvation is 
possible where it was impossible before ; God's 
love is accessible where it was inaccessible be- 
fore ; a door in heaven is opened where there 
was no door before ; access to God is permitted 
where there was no access before ; and through 
Christ the sinful creature, can do what once the 
unfallen creature alone could do — draw near to 
God's footstool, and see its Father and its God. 
It seems to me, therefore, that the provision in 
the gospel commends itself to the judgment of 
man, and approves itself to be, what the poor 
Greek in his folly denied it to be, " the wisdom 
of God," as well as " the power of God, unto 
salvation." 

I may illustrate what I mean for those to 
whom an illustration might be more instructive 
in this way. Conceive a vast enclosure situated 
in some central part of the globe ; conceive that 
enclosure to contain within it, like an hospital, 
the dying, and, like a churchyard, the dead. 
Suppose that one in glory, like unto the Son of 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 541 

man, looks down upon it, sympathizes with the 
dying, and weeps, as he wept for dead Lazarus, 
over its dead. Suppose he has resolved, in the 
might of his sympathy, to retrieve, recover, save 
it, if it be possible. He comes down from that 
height of splendour in which he dwelt from 
everlasting — " the Man that is God's fellow " — 
to this enclosure of the dying and the dead; 
he approaches one gate, and he asks if he, the 
Omnipotent to save, may be admitted, that he 
may save ; and the sentinel of that gate says, 
" My name is Justice ; all within have been 
weighed in the balance, they are found want- 
ing, and none may approach to deliver them." 
He applies at another gate, and at that gate 
is another sentinel, whose name is Holiness, 
and his answer is, " They are fallen, sinful, 
polluted. All outside is the region of purity, 
all inside is the region of corruption and of 
sin ; and they cannot be permitted to breathe 
that holy air, and to gaze upon that unfallen 
spot where you have been, and where I am." 
He approaches another, where he finds Truth. 
She replies, ee I have said it ; I proclaimed 
on Sinai what would have been true if I had 
never proclaimed it ; what is not true because 



542 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

I have proclaimed it, but what would have 
been true if it had never been heard by 
mortal ear ; 6 The soul that sins, it shall die.' 
These have sinned, and die they must, and live 
they cannot." This Visitant returns to his ce- 
lestial abode, and he puts the question there, 
" What is to be done ? " and the mighty problem 
conceived by infinite Wisdom, and originated 
from sovereign Love, is made known, that God 
will deal with these dying and dead ones by 
a Substitute, and if one can be found who 
will appear in their stead, and exhaust the 
penalty that they have incurred, and obey 
that law, that infallible law, which they can- 
not obey, then they shall go free. That hea- 
venly Visitant returns to the same place, and 
there goes outside the camp : he suffers, and 
weeps, and bleeds, and dies ; and after he 
has done so, and risen from the grave, and 
ascended to his Father and to our Father, to 
his God and to our God, he proclaims what is 
done ; and J ustice replies, " I am satisfied ; the 
gates are opened and Truth replies, " I am 
satisfied ; let the gates be opened and Holi- 
ness replies, " I am satisfied ; let the gates be 
opened;" and one mighty pulse of love, from 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 543 

the heart of all love, thrills through every grave ; 
and one mighty wave of healing, from the Foun- 
tain of all healing, rolls through every breast ; 
and the dead live, the diseased are healed ; and 
mercy and truth meet together ; truth, and 
righteousness, and peace kiss each other ; and 
there is salvation for the worst of sinners, in a 
way and by a process that reflects the greatest 
glory upon Him that ee so loved us, that he gave 
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." 

But I have viewed the provision very much 
as a channel by which God's love can come 
forth to us, or as a provision in which holiness, 
truth, and justice form themselves into a channel 
by which God's love may reach us. I view it as 
more than this. The gift of Christ is precious, 
not only for what it conveys to us, but because 
of what it expresses and embodies to us. The 
gift of a Saviour teaches me two things : first, 
that it is possible now for God's mercy to reach 
me, and to forgive me ; and next, that God so 
loves and longs to save me, that to convince me 
of the height, and length, and breadth of that 
love, he gave as the exponent of it — his only 



544 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, 
what am I taught by this ? I am taught by this 
blessed provision, in its first aspect, that I may 
be saved, admitted into heaven, numbered with 
those that are there, but still, it may be, a stranger 
to God, and God a stranger to me, tolerated in 
heaven as one legally acquitted and no more ; 
but I am taught by this provision in its second 
aspect, that I shall be welcomed into heaven, 
that 1 shall be received, not as a servant, but a 
son ; that I shall not only be acquitted by a legis- 
lator legally, but accepted by a Father with all 
the expressions of paternal love ; and that I shall 
be in heaven, not merely as one legally there, 
but as one whose admission into its realms shall 
start long-slumbering songs, and be responded 
to by sympathy from God and all the holy ones 
who have preceded me to glory. And thus the 
gift of a Saviour is not only a channel along 
which it is possible for God's love to reach me, 
and along which it is possible for me to reach 
God, but it is also to me an index, or evidence, 
of the richness of that sovereign love that 
God bears to me, a poor sinner. " God so 
loved us." What immensity of meaning is con- 
densed in that monosyllable te so ! 99 " He so 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 545 

loved me, that/' in the language of St. Paul, 
"he spared not his only Son." What that rela- 
tionship of Son is, we know not ; we can form 
no just conception of it ; and the greatest light 
is cast upon it when we leave it to shine in its 
own untouched magnificence and glory. God's 
love to stars, and flowers, and created things is 
one thing ; God's love to angels is another thing ; 
God's love to sinners is different from both ; 
God's love to his own Son is something so 
unique, so peculiar, so raised above our appre- 
hension or the reach of our sympathies, that all 
we know is, that when God spared not his own 
Son, he showed in so doing a love at which an 
apostle who had been in the third heaven, un- 
able to fathom it, exclaims, " O the height, and 
depth, and length, and breadth ; it passeth un- 
derstanding ! " 

Let us notice here the expression, "gave." 
Every word is instinct with meaning. It is not 
said here, that he " permitted " his Son to die. 
It is said, te He gave," or, as it is expressed by 
Paul, " He spared not his only begotten Son." 
That expression alone is a shadow of the height 
and depth of that love. 

When he gave Christ, he did not compel an 
2 N 



546 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

unwilling being to become a substitute for us, 
but he gave one who rejoiced to take our place, 
whose love was the same as the Father's, and 
who rejoiced to array himself in our respon- 
sibilities, and to die for us, that we might never 
die. I have always felt that the Socinian who 
denies the Deity of Christ, most consistently 
denies the atonement of Christ — I mean, the 
atonement as we understand the word to mean ; 
for it seems to me, that if Christ were a mere 
creature, there has something occurred in the 
dispensation of God inconsistent with the re- 
velation he has given of himself. If Christ were 
a mere creature, most innocent, and spotless, 
and holy, as the Socinian ever admits him to 
be, then how can you explain this fact, that the 
holiest being in the whole universe was made 
by God himself to be the greatest sufferer in the 
whole universe ? The great law of God is, that 
holiness is perfect happiness, that sin is misery. 
Then, how happens it that the holiest being, 
who justly came under the law that perfect 
holiness is perfect happiness, has not merely 
become through man's wickedness, but by God's 
direct arrangement, the greatest sufferer ? It 
would seem, that if Christ were not God, his dy- 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 547 

ing was worth nothing as a substitution or an 
atonement; he had no right to lay down his 
life. A creature's life is not at his disposal. A 
man who commits suicide is just as guilty as 
one who slays another, that is, if he be in pos- 
session of his mind. I have no right to lay 
down my life for another, however much I may 
love him. But Christ says, " I lay down my 
life, that I might take it again. No man taketh 
it from me, but I lay it down of myself ; I have 
power to lay it down, and I have power to take 
it again." In other words, he died voluntarily ; 
and the fact that he accepted the death that he 
suffered ; that he endured the cross ; that he 
laid down his life willingly, and not reluctantly, 
is proof he was God as truly as man — God in 
our nature, as a substitution for our sins. Thus 
he died, not a reluctant victim, but a willing 
Saviour, for us and for our salvation. All his 
sorrow and sufferings were as much the ex- 
ponents of his love, as the evidences of his 
atonement. I n'eed not now dwell on some in- 
stances there are in heathen history, and in 
Scripture narrative, of great love. Barak and 
Deborah jeoparding their lives in the high 
places of the field, indicated great love, but it 
2 n 2 



548 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

was for their own. Gideon fighting for the 
Shechemites, not fearing death, braving danger, 
displayed great love, but it was for his own, 
David's love for Absalom was beautiful, but it 
was for a son. David's love for Jonathan was 
beautiful, but it was the love of great friend- 
ship. But here is the great unparalleled and 
unprecedented fact, that God loved us, that 
" herein is love, that while we were yet sinners 
Christ died for us." 

Now, what is the result of all this provision ? 
It is, " that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have eternal life." " Whosoever 
believeth." I have waived all the compara- 
tively paltry discussions in which mere Calvin- 
ists and Arminians waste their time, as to the ex- 
tent of this atonement. May it not be possible 
in our creeds to hold the highest Calvinism, 
whilst in our sermons we preach what may be 
thought Arminianism ? May not one preach the 
sovereignty of grace, and yet unfold the grand 
provision of the gospel, and man's responsibility 
for its rejection ? Not otherwise shall we present 
the gospel in its true glory. The high Calvinist 
gives a profile of Christianity ; the low Armi- 
nian gives the other profile of it ; while he who 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 549 

neither preaches Calvinism nor Arminianism, 
but the glorious gospel of Christ, gives the 
truest view of Christianity. What then does 
" the world " mean ? It means those that do not 
deserve to be saved ; those that have no instinc- 
tive desire to be saved ; those that were lost, 
ruined, and undone, and neither were able nor 
willing to help themselves. Christ so loved 
these, that whosoever believeth in him shall not 
perish, but have everlasting life. "Whoso- 
ever " is the limit. All caste, and colour, 
and country, and clime, so far as their moral 
conditions are involved, are obliterated in the 
provision of the gospel. Those words, " It is 
finished," rent the partition- walls of ten thou- 
sand distinctions. Those distinctions which 
raised so high their adamantine walls upon the 
earth, and that still look to us so impassable, 
are swept away like sand-ridges before the out- 
flowing tide of that love that gave Christ to die 
for us. It is a love that can overflow all heights, 
that can satisfy all wants, that has provided a 
Saviour for all that will, without exception, 
without limitation of any sort or any shape 
whatever. 

These words contemplate only two great 



550 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

classes ; those that have eternal life, and those 
that are perishing — "Whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish/' — that implies one class 
— "but have eternal life" — that is the other 
class. 

What is perishing ? I have examined the word 
that is translated " perish/' in various Lexi- 
cons, and find one of its leading ideas to be, 
" to be wretched/' " to be miserable/' " to be 
undone." The Greek gambler, when he was 
ruined, used the Greek word, tc perished," — " I 
am miserable and ruined for life." And, there- 
fore, the meaning of this passage is, " Whoso- 
ever believeth in him should not be ruined for 
ever and for ever." It does not mean annihila- 
tion, but " living, lasting consciousness of evil." 
It is better to show that there is nothing to 
prevent our being instantly saved, than to try 
to induce men to cry, " Peace, peace," by the 
wretched sophistry that hell is only a kind of 
Protestant purgatory, in which they will be 
purged for a season. It means, perished and 
ruined eternally, and yet not by a decree of 
God. The stone let drop from the height, 
needs not to be impelled by any other than 
the law of gravitation : it falls to the ground 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 551 

i naturally. The man who was bitten by the 
i serpent in the wilderness did not die because 
1 Moses had decreed it so, or because the serpent 
I by its operation made it so, but he died by the 
I very fact that he refused to look at that symbol, 
looking at which would have given him in- 
stant health. Even so, the sinner who is not 
saved through the blood and sacrifice of Jesus, 
does not perish by a decree sinking him to the 
depths of ruin, but, while he rejects Christ, by 
the very necessity of his case. The effect of 
sin is distance from God, and the action of sin 
is to increase that distance more and more, and 
the meaning of hell is just the endless retro- 
gression or distance from God ; just as God's 
love and salvation are the elements of endless 
approximation to God ; and the definition of 
heaven is, a ceaseless centripetal attraction, 
under which the ransomed is ever approaching 
God, ever drinking deeper and deeper joys, 
and yet never reaching that infinite and glorious 
centre ; and hence by the very law of the 
sufferings of the lost, the longer they live, 
the more terrible their catastrophe becomes. 
Perishing, has compressed in it an amount of 
sorrow, and agony, and woe, that many would 



552 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

pronounce to be exaggeration were they to hear 
one attempt to unfold and explain it. Are we 
in this class ? We have not to do something in 
order to be cast into it : we are born members 
of this class ; we are born in this company ; we 
begin to fall the instant we come into the world, 
and our downward tendency must be met and 
arrested by the interposition of the truths con- 
tained in the gospel, before we can ever return 
and be numbered in the condition of those I 
describe in the next place — those that have 
eternal life ; this is the second class. 

What is meant by " eternal life 55 ? Those 
that have embraced the new, and, I think, the 
most unscriptural theology, say, that " eternal 
life 99 means, that those who believe in this will 
simply live for ever, while those that reject 
the gospel will after a season be utterly anni- 
hilated. Surely this expression, " eternal life,' 
as used in the Bible, means something more 
than endless progression of life, or simply cease- 
lessly living. Did you ever hear it asserted in 
the Scriptures, or did you ever hear it said by 
any man, that Satan and his angels have eternal 
life? Does not the very statement revolt the 
very deepest and holiest instincts of our nature ? 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 553 

We dare not say, Satan has eternal life ; and 
yet Satan will live for ever and for ever. This 
" eternal life " does not mean mere endless life, 
but a nobler and more glorious life, — a life that 
man lost in Paradise, and that is only found at 
the cross, — a life that unites to life, and gives 
responsibilities to which the natural man is alto- 
gether dead. A man who has this life, moves 
in a new orbit ; he is under the attraction of a 
new power ; all the affections of his soul are 
resonant with the songs of the blessed ; and his 
heart beats under the touch of the finger of in- 
finite Love. The Spirit tells him, and the 
blessed consciousness of it assures him, " We 
know that we have eternal life." 

" This has power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal silence. 
Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea. 
Which brought us hither ; 
Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. " 

Our conscious possession of this eternal life 
is the element of our greatest happiness. It 
is not a life that time measures, it is in itself 



554 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

so peculiar, so glorious, so blessed, that a be- 
liever knows what it is, and yet he cannot un- 
fold and explain it to any one besides. It is 
the conscious possession of this eternal life that 
makes us meet death as a mere slight interrup- 
tion in our upward and glorious progress. We 
feel that when we shall lay down this mortal, we 
shall leave but a little dust behind us, the 
abandonment of which only enables us to put 
forth new wings, and to soar to new realms, 
and to enjoy in all its splendour and its fulness 
that life which endures for ever. 

But the language of Jesus is, " Whosoever 
believeth " hath eternal life. The assurance 
of heaven does not mean that a man leaps from 
the love and the practice of sin into a sort of 
Mahometan Paradise, or Pagan Elysium ; he 
that believes on the Son of God has eternal life. 
It is a personal and present prerogative, and 
he that has it is conscious of it. If we are 
destined to enter into heaven, we must carry 
heaven with us now. If there never has been 
a little heaven within us upon earth, we shall 
never enter into a larger heaven with God in 
glory. Heaven begins in the individual bosom, 
and culminates in the glory that is to be re- 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 



555 



vealed. The love of God comes to us in the 
shape of life ; it remains within us in the form 
of life, and that life flowers in everlasting joy 
and felicity. 

These are the two great classes of mankind 
— those that have from the first Adam naked 
and perishing souls ; and those that have from 
the second Adam everlasting life. There may 
be circumstantial, national, ecclesiastical, phy- 
sical, moral distinctions, but all these are evan- 
escent as the clouds that sweep through the sky. 
These two great, broad distinctions are lasting 
as the great bright stars that shine still and far 
beyond us ; they who belong to the company of 
the lost — and of all categories that is the most 
awful — or they who belong to the glorious 
company of the saved, and are now living, justi- 
fied, and adopted. Let us not look at heaven 
as if it were all in the future, but recollect it 
must begin now in the individual heart. All 
that the judgment-day does, is to perpetuate 
what is' now. " He that is unjust, let him be 
unjust still; he that is unholy, let him be un- 
holy still" — that is hell. In fact, Christ con- 
tinues the impulse that began on earth, and that 
impulse is everlasting heaven ; and Christ per- 



556 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

mits in them that believe not the impulse that 
began at birth, and that impulse, unarrested, is 
everlasting hell. 

But whilst there is this broad distinction, let 
me explain very briefly how one may be 
changed. " Whosoever believeth." — Then there 
must be a personal act on our part. No man 
finds himself in heaven, and is surprised how he 
ever got there. No man finds himself among 
the lost, and is startled by the unexpected dis- 
covery. Every man knows in his calmest and 
most solemn moments quite well whither he is 
going. He sometimes so trembles at his own 
thoughts, that he will not let himself hear the 
whispers of his own conscience. Many a man 
would rather face a foe armed with all the wea- 
pons of battle, than his own conscience ; and 
the struggle of thousands every day is to get rid 
of the monitions of that faithful monitor within 
— the presentiments, and prophecies, and fore- 
bodings of a conscience, that knows quite well 
whether it be at peace with God, or still a 
stranger altogether to the gospel. Before this 
change can take place, you must believe in 
Christ Jesus. It is, " Whosoever believeth ; " 
not, "Whosoever doeth," "Whosoever suffer- 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 557 



eth," " Whosoever payeth," but " Whosoever 
believeth." But, what is believing? Just 
putting confidence in this testimony of God ; it 
is the acquiescence of the inmost man in this 
blessed truth, that there is now a provision so 
glorious, that God's mercy can reach me while 
it reflects his own glory ; that there is now a 
Saviour, the exponent of God's love for me — 
why not for me? — and believing thus, I am 
justified by faith, and have peace with God. It 
is the simplicity of the gospel that is, unfor- 
tunately, shall we say, its greatest stumbling- 
block. Too many ministers of the gospel, by 
giving elaborate metaphysical disquisitions on 
subjective and objective divinity, upon faith, 
and virtue, and vice, obscure that glorious truth, 
which comes with the splendour and the sim- 
plicity of the sunbeam, " Whosoever believeth 
in the Son of God shall not perish, but have 
eternal life." It is just confidence in God, con- 
fidence in the testifier, confidence in the testi- 
mony. It is coming to him penetrated with a 
deep sense of our ruin, and with a lively appre- 
hension of the perfection of the work of him 
who came to save us. But, you perhaps say, Am 
I quite sure it is for me ? The question is, Why 



558 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD, 

not for me ? You are not to sit down, and say, 
Why for me ? but you are to explain and an- 
swer this expression, Why not for me ? You 
are a sinner, you are lost, you are perishing. 
Then you are the very person that Christ came 
to save; and if you see this, and rely upon this 
glorious provision, and look for glory, and hap- 
piness, and heaven in the strength of it, and say, 
I will show how thankful I am by how holy I 
live, and by delighting to do all the command- 
ments of him who loved me, then you have 
peace. Just as the Israelite dying in the desert 
looked to the brazen serpent, and that instant 
recovered, so the sinner, serpent-stung, dying, 
perishing, in this world's desert, is called upon 
simply to look at, to believe on, to put confi- 
dence in Christ, and to have thus everlasting 
life. It is just taking God at his own word ; it 
is saying from the very heart, " Amen," to all 
that God has done. 

The great sin that will be the destruction of 
not a few will be, that they knew this, and de- 
spised it ; that they heard this, and perished 
notwithstanding. The text is the first note of 
the everlasting jubilee ; to believe in this is 
your instant duty. Do not say* " I cannot." 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 559 

Cannot! You can put confidence in the Bank 
of England, confidence in your parent, con- 
fidence in your brother, confidence in a mer- 
chant, and cannot put confidence in God ! Are 
you not ashamed to say, " I cannot believe?" 
And if you are conscious that you cannot, do 
you not know of him who said, " My strength 
is made perfect in weakness," ee Ask, and ye 
shall receive." The consciousness that you 
cannot believe, is the first pulse of everlasting 
life ; but the declaration of want of confidence 
in God expressed by " I cannot," is only a de- 
ceptive way of saying, " I will not." 

Let us not die with bread before us. I be- 
lieve the most awful ruin is that which begins 
its descent on Calvary, and at the foot of the 
cross : the most terrible midnight is that whose 
twilight begins by the setting of the Sun of 
righteousness here below. Flee from the wrath 
to come ; be Christians. Arise, and go to your 
Father, who " so loved you, that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish, but have eternal life." 



CHAPTER XX. 



FAITH AND HOPH. 

" The steps of faith 
Fall on the seeming void, and find 
The Rock beneath." 

" Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
not seen." — Hebrews xi. 1. 

We have seen a portion of the " cloud of 
witnesses" in the Church before the Flood. 
They walked by faith in the days of Noah, as 
we do now. Faith was the secret of their vic- 
tory, as it is of ours. 

Man can easily understand, in his natural 
condition, why love, obedience, and truth should 
be commanded in the Scriptures. These are 
graces which he can admire, even when he re- 
fuses to practise and embody them in his con- 
duct. But the mere natural man, unacquainted 
with the great truths of the gospel, is unable to 
comprehend why faith should be made so much 
of in every part of the gospel. For example, it 
seems to him rather the ground for an objection 



FAITH AND HOPE. 561 

to Christianity, than a reason for its Divine 
origin ; that men should be exhorted so often to 
believe, and, as he supposes, should be exhorted 
so seldom to do, to act, to obey. He reads such 
passages as these, " If ye have faith as a grain 
of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain, 
Remove hence to yonder place ; and it shall 
remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto 
you." He reads again, " The just shall live by 
faith." He reads also, " Justified by faith, we 
have peace with God." Again, when the ques- 
tion was asked, in the agony of overwhelming 
and poignant conviction, " What must I do to 
be saved?" he reads that the answer was not^ 
" Climb to heaven," nor, " Purchase heaven by 
your good deeds," nor, " Obey, and be reward- 
ed," as rational men would suppose ; but, " Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
be saved." And he reads again that, not self- 
reliance, not courage, not strength, not might, 
not power, either were or are the victory that 
overcorneth the world ; but " this is the victory 
that overcorneth the world, even our faith." 
He cannot understand it. It seems to him 
evident that the system is not Divine that incuP 
cates a grace which, he conceives, may live and 
2 o 



562 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

flourish in its intensest form, without the fruits 
of purity, truth, and holiness. 

We are perfectly aware that faith, severed 
from love, may be a mere conviction in the head, 
unproductive of any real good. But, whilst 
faith, when it is alone as a mere intellectual con- 
viction, and no more, may be worth nothing ; 
yet there is not a grace in the Christian charac- 
ter that has vitality or fragrance without faith. 
Love severed from faith is a blossom nipped 
from the branch on which it grows. Duty se- 
vered from faith becomes a hard, stiff, rigid per- 
formance. Only when inspired, sustained, and 
invigorated by it, does the blossom bloom in 
amaranthine beauty, and develope itself in pre- 
cious truth and duty, and reflect the light of 
glory in the sky. 

It is, however, very remarkable, that Paul, 
the ee apostle of faith," as he has been called, 
gives the most exquisite definition and illus- 
tration of love ; and, on the other hand, John, 
the " apostle of love," attributes most to faith. 
Who can forget that beautiful chapter, " Though 
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
and have not love, I am become as sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



563 



have tlie gift of prophecy, and understand all 
mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I 
have all faith," says the apostle of faith, " so 
that I could remove mountains, and have not 
love, I am nothing " ? On the other hand, when 
we turn to John, who dwelt so much on love, 
the apostle that Jesus loved, in whom the hu- 
man sympathies of Jesus so much centred, and 
ask him what he thinks of faith, he answers, 
" Who is he that overcometh the world, but 
he that believeth ? " ee Whatsoever is born of 
God overcometh the world : and this is the 
victory that overcometh the world, even our 
faith." " He that believeth on the Son of God 
hath the witness in himself." " These things 
have I written unto you that believe on the 
name of the Son of God ; that ye may know 
that ye have eternal life, and that ye may be- 
lieve on the name of the Son of God." Paul, 
who is suspected by some of laying too much 
stress on faith, gives the grandest picture of love ; 
and John, who is suspected by others of laying 
too much stress upon love, attributes, neverthe- 
less, in the midst of his portraiture of love, the 
strength, and force, and victory to faith. 

The truth is, that faith is the root under- 
2 o 2 



584 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

ground, not always seen ; because it feeds upon 
the unseen. We trace faith not by seeing it, 
but by seeing its fruits. It is the hidden force, 
coiled up in the regenerated heart, which gives 
birth to that victory over sin and Satan and the 
world, which is described as more than victory, 
through him that loved us. 

The true definition of faith, when we take the 
original word for our guide, is not an abstract, 
intellectual belief, if that be possible; but ec con- 
fidence" — (7770-™?). It is the same to the mind, 
that leaning on a stick, or a wall, or on a found- 
ation, or on any other support, is to the body. 
It is not a cold conviction that lies in the under- 
standing ; but a warm, generous confidence, 
that lives in the innermost recesses of the heart. 
That man does not truly believe, who does not 
bring head and heart to rely upon " the Lamb of 
God that taketh away the sin of the world." 

Is it objected by some, that the gospel lays too 
much stress upon this confidence — for we may 
translate the word very properly (C confidence." 
W e ask, is not faith, or confidence, the very 
cement of the whole structure, and pyramid of 
social life. Without faith, or confidence in the 
laws of nature, as they are commonly called, the 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



565 



farmer would not sow, the man of business 
would not enter into engagements or make 
promises, and the sailor would not attempt to 
cross the Atlantic. The artisan would not labour, 
except he had faith that the market would be 
open, and accessible to the products of his la- 
bour. In other words, by faith the farmer 
sows, the merchant speculates, the sailor goes to 
sea, and the artisan engages in his daily toil. 
Whether we like it or not, the just and the 
unjust live by faith. The just live a higher life, 
the unjust live a lower, but both must live by 
faith. Take away this " faith" — or "confi- 
dence " — and what is the worth of any institu- 
tion that we have ? Take away confidence from 
a bank, and it goes to ruin. Exhaust public 
confidence from an insurance office, and it will 
soon be broken up. Take away confidence from 
government, and its stability is gone. Exhaust 
the confidence of man in man, and each indi- 
vidual would be insulated from the rest of so- 
ciety, and would look with a cold suspicion 
upon his neighbour, and all reciprocal good 
offices would cease, and society would fall to 
pieces, or corrupt and rot under its own depra- 
vity and wickedness. 



568 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Faith or confidence is necessary to the very 
existence of the social system, and, if it be per- 
fectly reasonable that confidence should be so 
important an element in this under world, is it 
unreasonable to suppose that God should have 
laid hold of so precious an element, and made 
it occupy a mighty and important place in the 
higher world ? 

It has, however, been objected by some to 
faith, and to the stress that is laid on it, that 
many persons substitute " 1 believe " for " I 
do," or " I give," " I love." St. James tells 
us, that it is not the exercise of true Christian 
faith, to say to the cold, " Go, and be warmed," 
to the naked, " Go, and be clothed," while he 
does not warm nor clothe them ; and he asks 
very naturally, " Can such a faith — can this 
sham faith save ? " It is this sham faith that 
St. James speaks of, and not the faith of the 
gospel. But when persons do substitute " I 
believe " for " I do," " I love," religion is not 
to be blamed, surely, for this perversion of it. 
The man who substitutes the creed for the 
decalogue, who thinks the repetition of the 
one without an omission to be an atonement 
for his breach of the other ; who thinks that 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



567 



orthodoxy is a sufficient substitute, and an 
atonement for immorality, and that right be- 
lieving is good enough, although there be not 
right living ; perverts the gospel, has not only 
no right faith, but has no idea of the nature 
or obligations of faith. There cannot be real 
faith, or confidence in God, in the Scriptural 
sense of that word, without a retinue of Chris- 
tian graces constantly in its train. To talk of 
faith being imperfect without works, is just as 
foolish as to talk of a fire being imperfect with- 
out heat, or of the sun being imperfect without 
sun-beams. If there be no heat, there is no 
fire; if there be no light, there is no risen sun; 
if there be no good works, there is no faith. 
There cannot be true Christian faith, unless 
there follow it, necessarily and truly, a thorough 
Christian practice. Faith gives momentum to 
every grace, the direction it is to take, the vi- 
tality in which it flourishes ; and without faith, 
all Christian graces would instantly expire. 

The definition of the apostle is, u Faith is the 
substance of things hoped for." 

There has been a great deal of discussion as 
to what is the precise meaning of the word 
" substance." Perhaps the plainest expletive 



568 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

is, it is the " basis " of things hoped for, that 
whatever good hope a man has, must, if it be 
good, lean upon the foundation of previous 
sound faith. In other words, it teaches us, that 
it is impossible to cherish a hope worth having, 
unless we have a faith that will issue in fruition ; 
that for all good things that are truly hoped for, 
there must be good things that are truly be- 
lieved in. Faith, the belief of good, is the 
basis of hope, the expectation of good. 

When it is said, 66 Faith is the substance of 
things hoped for," we naturally ask, What are 
some of these things? what did Noah, and 
Enoch, and Abel expect ? There are some things 
that are properly the objects of hope ; there are 
other things that we never ought and never can 
hope for. Persons say, " I hope for the forgive- 
ness of my sins ; " "I hope one day to repent." 
This language is absurd. Forgiveness of sin is 
not the object of hope at all; it is the object 
and possession of faith. 6C I hope to repent," is 
delusion; because I repent through believing, 
not by hoping. It is the ruin of many, that 
they hope to be forgiven ; it is the joy and safety 
of thousands, that they believe that they are 
forgiven, or in order to be forgiven. We are 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



569 



not to hope to be forgiven ; but to believe, in 
order to be forgiven, or that we are already 
forgiven. We are not to build our faith upon 
our hopes, but our hopes upon our faith. Thus 
" faith is the substance/' the basis, " of things 
hoped for." 

No Christian ought, or is warranted, to hope 
for increase of pardon and justification before 
God. Every one is now, by faith in the right- 
eousness of Christ, either completely justified, 
so that his justification cannot be increased, or 
he is not justified at all. We may be imperfectly 
sanctified, because the work of the Holy Spirit 
is a progressive one ; but we cannot be im- 
perfectly justified. We either are clothed in 
the righteousness of the Lamb that has been 
slain ; and because of that righteousness, Omni- 
science cannot see a flaw in us ; or we are so 
completely strangers to that righteousness, so 
destitute of it, that we have no title to heaven 
whatever in the sight of God. Justification is 
the same to the believer who yesterday was for- 
given, as it is to the saint who stands upon the 
verge of glory, and has been justified for fifty 
years. We are perfectly justified, or not justified 



570 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

at all. We cannot, therefor e, hope for increase 
of justification in the sight of God. 

Nor can we hope for increase of the love of 
God. God's love to us is not increased with 
the increase of our faith. He loved us from 
everlasting, just as he loves us now, and in 
either case so intensely, that the exponent of 
that love is the gift of his only begotten Son — 
the Lord Jesus Christ. We may enjoy more of 
that love by having the inner eye more open to 
its reception; but to increase that love is im- 
possible. We cannot increase the infinite. The 
breath of the babe cannot add to the impetus of 
the hurricane. The tear of the orphan cannot 
add to the immensity of the waters of the un- 
sounded sea. The finite cannot increase the 
infinite. God's love, infinite in its existence, 
unchangeable in its application, must be " the 
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; " we can- 
not expect an increase of it. 

What, then, are we warranted to hope for ? 
What hope should we build upon the increase 
of our faith ? The great hope constantly held 
out in the New Testament is the promised re- 
turn of the Lord Jesus Christ; that return 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



571 



which Enoch prophesied : " I will come again, 
and receive you to myself." To them that look 
for him, he will come a second tirae, without 
sin to salvation. " Looking for/' says the apostle^ 
"that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of 
Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour." In other 
words, we do not believe, for our salvation, in 
justification by faith, but in Christ ; so we do 
not hope for a millennium, but for Christ. The 
faith of the Christian rests upon a personal Being 
— Christ ; the hope of the Christian stretches to 
a personal Being — Christ. We believe upon him 
for the forgiveness of our sins ; we hope in him 
for the perfection of our glory, and happiness 
for ever. The faith of the Christian believes in 
the truth of the promise ; the hope of the 
Christian feeds upon the goodness of the pro- 
mise. Faith takes the cup in its hand that 
God freely offers ; hope tastes the wine that is 
in the cup, and is gladdened and exhilarated 
thereby. 

A Christian may also hope for that blessed 
inheritance that God has promised. He has 
reserved for us an entrance into blessedness — 
an inheritance shall be administered unto us, 
real though unseen, the subject of promise, the 



574 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

not seen." In other words, a Christian has an- 
other sense. As truly as the natural eye sees the 
panorama, the landscape, the rock, the flowers, 
the trees ; so truly an inner eye, which is the 
gift of God, and the possession of every Chris- 
tian, sees things that are unseen and eternal. 
The things that are unseen by the natural eye 
are as real to the inner eye of a child of God, as 
the things that are seen by the natural eye are 
to the natural man. No natural light, bude 
light, electric light, or other, can enable a blind 
man to see. No reasoning, no philosophy, no 
science, no eloquence, can enable an unregener- 
ate man who has not this inner eye that God 
gives, to see the things of glory, of eternity, and 
of happiness to come. 

To a Christian, faith in God's word is surer 
than geometry to a geometrician, or mathema- 
tics to a man of science. He believes in virtue 
of a sense that a natural man has not. In 
other words, faith, while it has an analogous 
thing in the natural man in the shape of con- 
fidence in human things, is nevertheless a gift 
of God ; as the apostle says, " To you it is 
given to believe ; 55 and only in the exercise of 
this inspired faith we see things that are unseen. 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



575 



Let us ascertain some of the things unseen, 
that faith sees. 

A natural man, that is, a man that is unre- 
generate, may come to a conclusion that a God 
exists. Justly he may say, I trace his foot- 
prints on every acre of the earth, and I can see 
his smiles in the morning light, I can hear his 
voice in the thunder, and in the chimes of the 
sea, and there are so many and so marked ex- 
hibitions of system, of goodness, and of design 
in the visible frame-work of this outer world, 
that I come to this conclusion, that there is a 
God. But a Christian, while he comes to the 
same conviction, on the same premises, has, in 
addition to this, faith which is " the evidence 
of things not seen." In other words, a Chris- 
tian believes that there is a God upon an addi- 
tional ground, and that additional ground is, 
Thus saith the Lord : God's enunciation of 
himself is the everlasting ground on which a 
Christian believes that there is a God. 

Another thing unseen which the Christian 
believes, and Adam foresaw and Abel looked 
for, is the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ 
— a cardinal and vital truth in the gospel. 
" Great is the mystery of godliness." No man 



576 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

can comprehend it ; but the Bible asserts it, and 
therefore the Christian believes it. And this 
incarnation of Jesus is not a dreamy abstraction, 
an artistic representation, but a Divine person. 
Jesus is not the God-like in the human nature, 
he is not latent divinity in man, nor divine 
biography in man, as the Pantheists call him ; 
but he is t€ God," the personal God, 6C manifest 
in the flesh." A Christian, although he does 
not see Christ, yet believes in Christ ; and the 
faith by which he thus believes, is to him " the 
evidence of things not seen." 

So, in the same manner, we accept the work 
of the Holy Spirit of God. The world laughs 
at it ; the natural man, and very gifted men, call 
it fanaticism ; and yet it is just as much a fact 
as any of the phenomena in the natural world, 
that one has undergone a change that has cast 
a new light upon the universe, and made all 
things become new ; and that another has not 
undergone that change, but is sensuous, car- 
nal, of the earth, earthy. A Christian sees 
the Holy Spirit's work within him, because he 
believes the Holy Spirit's word without him. 
He does not see the Spirit's work, and yet he 
believes its reality, because faith is to him " the 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



evidence of tilings not seen." Some of the most 
potent agencies in the outer world are unseen. 
The most powerful element in nature is invisi- 
ble. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth, so is 
every one that is bom of the Spirit of God/' 

A man that has this faith, the faith of a Chris- 
tian, believes also in the immortality of the soul, 
and its emergence at death from its earthly 
tabernacle. We may conclude, from manifold 
presumptions, that the soul survives the body : 
but we cannot irrefragably prove it. But the 
Christian hears God pronouncing its immor- 
tality, and that faith which accepts whatever 
God has written, is to him the basis of the thing 
that is told him, and the evidence of the things 
that the natural eye cannot see. 

Faith not only discloses things that are un- 
seen, but it brings them near and appropriates 
them. It brings God near, it brings Christ near, 
it brings the future near, it brings the unseen 
near to us. So truly so, that the Christian acts 
from motives, and entertains objects, and aims, 
and hopes which are strange and mysterious 
altogether to a natural man. A natural man 
2 p 



578 THE CHUECH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

cannot understand how any one should brave 
shame, or despise riches, or hate even life itself, 
rather than light a little incense, as the Chris- 
tians were asked to do, upon the altar of Jupiter. 
A natural man cannot understand how he should 
lose a splendid profit by deference to some in- 
ner light — some mighty motive, that guides, 
sustains, and actuates the soul within. But a 
Christian does. And why ? Because a natural 
man lives in a lower element, and a Christian 
lives in a higher. They to whom the sea is the 
natural element, cannot understand the move- 
ments of them whose element is the air. A 
Christian lives in the higher element, and, there- 
fore, what influences, guides, moves, directs 
him, is altogether a mystery to the world ; so 
truly so, that the world knoweth us not, as it 
knew Him not. 

And faith not only brings near, it also ap- 
propriates. It puts the word " mine " to every 
thing that God says, and to every thing that 
God has promised. Any man can say, There 
is a God, a Saviour, a Bible, a heaven ; but, 
in the exercise of that faith which is to a 
Christian " the evidence of things not seen, 
and the substance of things hoped for," he can 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



579 



say, He is my God, lie is my Saviour, he is my 
Sanctifier ; and that heaven is my heaven, and 
that happiness is my happiness. 

Thus, faith sets in motion almost all the 
springs that can move and actuate the human 
soul. So true is this, that he must be a stranger 
indeed to faith who does not bring forth all the 
fruits of the Spirit, and show, in his whole walk 
and conversation, that he is moved and guided 
by an inner but unseen motive power, that is 
f the victory that overcometh the world." If a 
man believe truly that there is a region where 
gold is to be had only for the gathering, or that 
there are streams, like those of Pactolus of old, 
whose sands are golden, he goes to that land, 
and seeks for what can enrich him ; or if there 
be an invalid who hears of a land where there 
is a bright sun and a cloudless sky, where his 
health may be invigorated and restored, he sails 
for that land, and avails himself of it. If you 
truly believe that you are lost by nature, and 
can only be saved by grace ; if you really be- 
lieve that you are perishing and passing to ever- 
lasting death, and that there is an arm stretched 
down from the skies on which you have only to 
lay hold to be drawn up to everlasting glory ; if 
2 p 2 



580 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

you with, your affections and heart believe this, 
it is impossible that you can fail to seize that 
hand, and so to hope for that glory. 

This faith, wherever it is, triumphs in every 
case, too, over death. A Christian by faith 
triumphs over death. The grave, which shocks 
some, does not shock him. He knows that he 
leaves in the grave only the robes in which he 
officiated as a Levite in the outer temple of 
God ; into the texture of which robes his hopes, 
his joys, his happiness do not enter. A Chris- 
tian, that is, he who has true faith, who has 
this inner eye that sees the things that are in- 
visible, detects no more connexion between 
death and extinction, than between life and ex- 
tinction. In other words, dust and the soul, 
corruption and the spirit, have no connexion 
whatever in a Christian's estimate. He cannot 
see that the soul dies, because the body dis- 
solves ; or that, because the one goes to corrup- 
tion, the other must be annihilated. On the con- 
trary, believing God's testimony, and seeing the 
things that are unseen by this inner and true 
eye, he believes that the wreck of the material 
frame is only the emergence and the disentangle- 
ment of the glorious tenant that inhabited it. 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



Such is that true faith, the basis of the happy 
things we hope for, the evidence of the true 
things which we believe, which the Church be- 
fore the Flood lived by, as truly as we. Have 
we this faith implanted in our hearts ? Have we 
a life distinct from and superior to the life that 
dies ? Have we springs and motives of action 
that the world has not ? Do we feel " Thou, O 
God, seest me and is this far more real and 
cogent and constraining in our experience than 
any any other motive that the world can pre- 
sent ? Do we feel, that because Christ has loved 
us, which we believe, that we ought to love him, 
and, loving him, to live to him, which is our 
duty ? The evidence of the sun being risen is 
that he shines ; the evidence of the fire being 
kindled is that it gives forth heat ; the evidence 
of faith being in us is that we act as faith pre- 
scribes, directs, and dictates. Can you, dear 
reader, believing these things, pray earnestly, 
" Lord, increase our faith ? " Such a petition 
is the evidence of faith. No man ever asked 
for faith from the depths of his heart, who had 
not already a portion of faith to enable him thus 
to ask. He who can say, " Take my case in 
thine hand, thou Great Physician, and heal 



582 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



me," has the inner eye that sees that physician 
already. The blind sees none. The fact that 
we see Christ, and appeal to him, is the evidence 
that the inner eye has been couched, and that 
we have that faith, which c{ is the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen." 

If we have this faith, we shall have peace. 
There is no one more marked fruit of faith 
spoken of in the Scriptures than peace. " Thou 
wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is 
stayed on thee ;" and again, " Justified by faith, 
we have peace with God." If there be this 
confidence in God, this sweet composure of our 
souls in the bosom and within the everlasting 
arms of our Father and of our God, then no 
storms that rage without can disturb us, no 
changes, perils, or vicissitudes can move us. 
When Noah was in the ark, he heard the hail- 
stones patter on the roof, and around him the 
noise of the angry surges; but he felt peace. 
Why ? not because the caulking, or the timber, 
or the bolts of that ark were all that he could 
wish them to be ; but because God had said 
that the ark should outlive it all, and land 
upon Ararat its redeemed ones, no more to 



FAITH AND HOPE. 



583 



look out upon a world under water ; but upon a 
world rebaptized, and renewed. Even so now, 
we shall have peace, not because we are strong, 
courageous, and clever, or have patronage, or 
money, or friends ; but because God keeps him 
" in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed upon 
him." Abel died in peace ; Noah felt peace in 
the ark ; by faith Daniel had peace in the den 
of lions. By faith Paul and Silas sang in their 
dungeon at midnight. By faith John saw Pat- 
mos transformed into a beauteous Paradise. By 
faith the tongues of martyrs, like harp -strings, 
emitted their sweetest sounds when they were 
dying. Their spirits passed to glory while an- 
thems and praises were upon their lips. By 
faith we too shall overcome. It is want of faith 
that makes some alarmed for the safety of the 
truth when a leaf falls from a tree. It is the 
presence of faith that enables the Christian to 
say, " Though the mountains be carried into the 
midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar 
and be troubled, we will not be afraid : for 
God is our refuge." It is want of faith that 
makes hundreds and thousands tremble for 
evangelical truth, because the pope has im- 
ported a cardinal into London. It is Christian 



584 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

confidence in the truth that makes all true be- 
lievers feel persuaded that all the cardinals in 
Eome will never be able to eradicate eternal 
truth. God has promised to us and to it immor- 
tality — He has declared that Babylon, like a 
great mill-stone, shall be cast into the depths of 
the sea, and shall be no more heard of at all. 
The greatest blunder that the Vatican ever per- 
petrated was that appointment. If there be 
truth in prophecy, or if the line of illustration 
we have tried to teach be true, it is just 
when the candle is going out, that it sends forth 
its brightest but short-lived lustre ; it is when 
death is going to close upon the body, that the 
most spasmodic action takes place ; it is just 
when Popery is about to be finally cast down, 
that its most desperate efforts will be made. 
But they will all be made in vain. We be- 
lieve in God, we believe also in Jesus, and, 
therefore, we have peace — perfect peace. The 
Lord reigns, the Lord is our refuge, we shall 
not be afraid. The same God that carried the 
Church before the Flood across the waters to 
Ararat, will conduct us through the last and 
more terrible baptism of the earth, to the ever- 
lasting hills of blessedness and peace. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



FULL ASSURANCE. 

14 If bliss had been in art or strength, 
None but the wise and strong had gained it ; 

Where now, by faith, all arms are of a length, 
One size doth all conditions fit. 

" A peasant may believe as much 
As a great clerk, and reach the highest stature : 

Thus dost thou make proud knowledge bend and crouch, 
While grace fills up uneven nature." 

" He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." — 
1 John v. 10. 

John enunciates the test of our Christianity 
on evidence intelligible to ourselves, and with- 
in our own reach ; a test applicable to ante- 
diluvians as to us ; in other words, he says 
that no man need be ignorant of the way 
he walks in, of the destiny he is wending 
to, of the character he sustains, and of the 
nature and the foundation and the strength 
of those hopes which he now cherishes. A 
man cannot well be a Christian without in 
some degree knowing it. He that believeth on 



586 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

the Son of God has the reflex influence of that 
belief by having the witness in himself. How 
important is this statement ! No one need re- 
main long ignorant of what he is, or indeed even 
be doubtful of what he is. Cain knew he was 
no saint. There are data in which, and by 
which, each may ascertain whether he be a 
Christian, or a mere child of the world. Let 
us proceed to enumerate them. Faith, as we 
have already seen, plays an important part in 
the gospel. We cannot read the New Testa- 
ment, or the previous chapter of this work, 
without seeing that there is ascribed to faith 
so much, that it seems the leading grace of the 
Christian character. It is "the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen." It is " the victory that overcometh the 
world." It worketh by lov-e> it purifieth the 
heart. 

The vital idea of faith is not an intellectual 
conviction that lies cold and inoperative in the 
mind, but an inward moral feeling, that con- 
strains, and kindles, and sanctifies the heart. In 
faith there is as much of a moral as of an in- 
tellectual element. It means the trust, or lean- 
ing of the heart, that feels its safety to be in 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



5ST 



doing so, rather than the conviction of an in- 
tellect that believes it orthodox, or rights to 
believe so. In other words 3 faith is as much a 
feeling as a conviction. It is more trusting in 
something we believe will sustain us, than 
mere credence of a dogma that we believe to be 
true. It relates more to the heart than to the 
head, and indicates its birth-place by the plastic 
power it exercises on the whole tone and tem- 
perament and conduct of the human character. 

Faith in Christ is not a substitute, or meant 
to be a substitute, for morality, but the root of 
it. When we hear one person say, we are saved 
by faith, and another person say, we are saved 
by works, it seems at first as if the one were 
just the correlative of the other; and as works 
are the foundation of one man's hopes, right or 
wrong, so faith is the foundation of another 
man's hopes, true or false. But it is not so. 
Faith is no more the ground of my acceptance 
before God than good conduct. If it were so, 
Adam's creed would be, Do, and live. Our 
creed would be, Believe, and live ; and the 
difference would be this, — Rightness of life 
was the ground of Adam's acceptance ; right- 
ness of creed would be the foundation of our 



588 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

acceptance ; but there is no more possibility of 
justification by believing rightly, than there is 
in doing rightly. In other words, orthodoxy is 
not the ground of our salvation. The devils 
believe all the articles of the creed, and yet they 
are not saved, but tremble ; and a man may still 
remember all the dogmas of Christianity, and 
yet not be a Christian at all. The ground of 
our acceptance is the righteousness of Christ, 
received by faith ; as the ground of Adam's 
acceptance before he fell was a perfect right- 
eousness achieved by his own doings. The 
difference between our condition and Adam's is, 
that Adam had to do righteousness, which, if 
done, was his right to heaven ; we have to re- 
ceive righteousness, which as received is our 
right to heaven. "What he had to do, we have 
simply to receive. He worked his way to hea- 
ven, and if he had persevered, he would have 
obtained it ; we receive our title to heaven, and 
holding fast that title, we are sure of the 
blessed and glorious result. " He that believeth 
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. 

But, whilst faith is not the substitute for 
works, nor right believing the substitute for 
right doing, yet wherever there is true faith in 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



589 



the human heart, there will be true holiness 
in the human life. There is no such thing as 
faith without works — it is an absurdity to sup- 
pose it. There may be what James calls a 
faith, reputed so by man, without works, but 
there cannot be the divine and elevating prin- 
ciple of the gospel, unless it be followed by all 
the fruits of righteousness, and move radiant in 
an atmosphere of light and life, so conspicuous 
that he that reads may run while he does so. 
One would not think of speaking of the sun in 
his meridian without light ; nor would one talk 
of a fire without heat ; we do not speak of a 
living tree without bud, or blossom, or fruit of 
some sort. So, to speak of living faith without 
fruits, is to suppose that a man having life can 
neither hear, nor taste, nor move a limb nor a 
muscle through his whole frame. The thing is 
absurd. If there are no fruits, there is no faith ; 
if there be faith at all, there must necessarily be 
some, or all the fruits of the gospel. Faith in 
Christ means, to trust in Christ as the only 
sacrifice, and to receive from Christ, as the Pro- 
phet and the King, direction how to live. From 
Christ as a sacrifice, we receive a new life ; from 



590 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

Christ as our King, we receive a new direction. 
We take pardon from the altar, we take di- 
rection from the sceptre, and wherever Christ is 
relied on truly for the forgiveness of all our 
sins, he is deferred to really for direction in all 
our doings. He, then, that thus belie veth on 
the Son of God, hath the witness in himself. 

It is said, " He that believeth on the Son of 
God." It is very beautiful, and very important 
to recollect, that the gospel of Christ is not 
trust in a doctrine, but in a person. Our creed 
is not, I believe in Christianity, but, I believe 
in Christ. And when the question was asked, 
"What must I do to be saved?" the answer 
was not, Believe in justification by faith — but, 
6C Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved." The beauty of the gospel is, 
that it brings us into contact, not with a valley 
of dry bones, or dead and uninfluential dogmas, 
but into living, personal connexion with Christ, 
the Son of God, the Saviour of all that believe. 
Hence our faith is not in the testimony, but in 
the testifier. The living stone, that is, the 
Christian, is built, not upon a dead doctrine, 
but upon the living Rock, the Lord Jesus 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



591 



Christ ; he that believeth, therefore, not in the 
fact that J esus died, but in the person of the 
Son of God, hath the witness in himself. 

The epithet under which the Saviour is here 
presented, is instructive. " He that belie veth 
on the Son of God." The name, Son, implies 
Father, and to accept the Son as our sacrifice, 
is, in that acceptance, to be thrown back upon 
the Father, as the fountain of the love that gave 
that sacrifice. Hence, he that believeth on the 
Son's propitiatory sacrifice, necessarily believes 
in the love of the Father, out of which that sa- 
crifice proceeded. He that believeth on the 
Son for the forgiveness of his sins, believes on 
the Father, as the fountain of that love, and 
the justifier of all them that believe. Thus, to 
believe in Christ, is to believe in him as the ex- 
pression and the channel of the Father's love, as 
the altar, the sacrifice, the Priest, the Prophet, 
and the King. It is not the reception of a le- 
gendary tradition, it is not the worshipping of 
an ancient and a venerable relic, but it is living 
in communion with, and actually resting upon, 
one who died for our sins, and rose again for our 
justification, and who ever liveth to make inter- 
cession for us. The apostle Paul's language is 



592 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

not, I count all but loss for the excellency of 
justification by faith, precious as that doctrine 
is, but, I count all but loss for the excellency of 
Christ. Hence, the Christian runs the race that 
is set before him, not looking to heaven as his 
ultimate and everlasting home, which it is, but 
looking to Jesus, as the author and the finisher 
of his faith. And in this respect, Christianity 
differs from every false religion. It is not a 
certain Shibboleth we pronounce, a certain 
dogma we proclaim, but a living, ever present, 
ever precious, ever glorious Saviour, in whom 
we trust in life, on whom we lean at death, and 
with whom we hope to spend an everlasting and 
inexhaustible eternity. He then that thus be- 
lieveth on the Son of God hath, we are told, the 
witness in himself. 

The witness is the main idea of the passage, 
and on this I wish chiefly to dwell. He has the 
witness in himself. That is, he has the evidence 
within, of the reality of his trust in a Saviour 
without. In other words, translated into sim- 
pler, or rather paraphrastic, language, he who 
is a Christian can scarcely escape the discovery 
that he is so. " He that believeth on the Son 
of God, hath the witness in himself." Now let 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



593 



us see what are some of the evidences that we 
are Christians, or some of the reflex operations 
of faith upon our own hearts, as we look intro- 
spectively, by which we know that we are the 
children of God. 

The fact that so great an interposition as 
Christ the Saviour was needed, is the indication 
of a great ruin that required it. It is impossi- 
ble that so tremendous a proviso should have 
been made for our recovery, if our ruin had not 
been total, complete, and otherwise irremediable. 
The Bible testifies outside of us, what man is 
inside. And is it not the fact, that when we 
read the volume that describes what is in man, 
we can scarcely ever escape the accompanying 
persuasion, that he who wrote these sketches of 
human corruption, that are recorded without, 
must have been acquainted with all the springs, 
and movements of the heart within, and that no 
more triumphant proof that the Bible is the in- 
spiration of God than the knowledge of what our 
own heart is, can be adduced amid the many evi- 
dences and the credentials of Christianity itself. 

Many a one has said, and not with feigned 
lips, that he who wrote the Bible, must have 
known all the windings, and coils, and cover- 
2q 



594 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

ings and mysteries of the human heart. The 
picture without is so perfect a transcript of all 
that is within, that he who compares the one 
with the other, has the witness in his own 
heart, that the Bible is the inspiration of God, 
and the record of everlasting truth. 

But this witness within is yet more realized by 
the fact, that the faith in the Son of God which 
is here spoken of, makes invisible things visible. 
If it be true, that he who believes on the 
Son of God sees what another man does not 
see, he has the evidence within himself that his 
faith is real. To a Christian, faith is precisely 
what sight is to a natural man. Another man 
sees the sun, and moon, and stars, the splendid 
and the wide-spread panorama of the world 
around him, and he is just as satisfied that he 
has the faculty of seeing, as he is that these 
things exist. The fact that he sees them, is to 
him the evidence that his eye is real, and trans- 
mits them. So it is with the Christian, who 
has faith. He who believes on the Son of God, 
sees things that are unseen, and the evidence 
that he sees them is the fact that he acts as if 
they were present. A man who has no faith, 
does not recognise God's presence, nor act as if 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



595 



God were looking on. nor feel as if lie were re- 
sponsible to that God who sees him ; but a 
Christian^ who believes on the Son of God, 
lives under the sense of God's presence, feels 
his responsibility to him, and is guided and 
governed as if a present God, which to the world 
is a phantom, were to him a reality ; and the very 
fact that he feels influenced by the unseen God, 
and guided by the prospects of an unseen eter- 
nity, is proof to him that he has the eye that 
sees those things — the faith which* is " the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen." When I look through a 
telescope, and that telescope shows me Saturn 
with his rings, or Jupiter with his satellites, I 
have, in sight of these two planets, evidence of 
the reality of the telescope ; so, when I feel as 
if God were present, act under the impulse of 
things unseen but not unfelt, I have in that 
consciousness the proof that my faith is real ; 
and thus believing on the Son of God, by what 
it brings of the unseen within the horizon, and 
by what it introduces of the otherwise unfelt 
into my own heart, I have the evidence that I 
believe on the Son of God, and am thus so far 
2 q 2 



596 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

proved a child of God, and an heir of the king- 
dom of heaven. 

He that believes has the evidence in himself to 
this extent, that he has the consciousness within 
him of a great change, expressed by J ohn in the 
Gospel as being " born again," or born from above. 
The whole of this Epistle contains a series of cri- 
teria, by which we ascertain whether we are chil- 
dren of God, and are born of him, and are be- 
lievers in his Son. Thus the very commencement 
is, " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, 
is born of God," — here then is one criterion. 
" Whosoever believeth on the Son of God hath 
the witness in himself." The two texts corre- 
spond ; the one is, whosoever believeth has the 
new birth ; the other is, whosoever believeth 
hath the witness in himself. Thus the new 
birth is self-evidential. A man must know that 
he is truly born again ; and how is it possible 
that there can be any doubt ? The change is 
so vast, the transformation is so great, that it is 
surely improbable that a man can be born again, 
and never dream for once that he is so. New 
tastes are generated by a new birth ; new hopes 
are inspired in a heart that is its subject. That 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



597 



which was toil before, is pleasure now; that 
which was exacted as a sacrifice once, is now 
rendered joyfully as a free-will offering. You 
feel that you move in a new sphere ; that you 
breathe a new atmosphere ; that you are actu- 
ated by new motives ; that you are impelled by 
dazzling and glorious hopes ; and it is impossible 
to escape the conviction, because you cannot 
escape yourself, that you are born again : that 
thus you believe on the Son of God, or that 
Jesus is the Christ. This was dimly but really 
felt in the Church before the Flood. 

John gives another test or criterion of the 
very same experience, when he says, " And every 
one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also 
that is begotten of him." In other words, 
wherever there is faith in the Son of God, there 
is love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and love to 
one another. Thus it is easy to test ourselves, 
whether we have faith in the Son of God, by 
translating the question of the apostle into 
other but no less significant language, — Do I 
love the Lord Jesus Christ? Do I love his 
sabbaths ? Do I love his word ? Do I love his 
people ? Do I love his sacrifice ? These are 
plain and intelligible questions ; and yet the 



598 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD* 

answer to these questions determines whether 
we have faith in the Son of God, that is, 
whether we be Christians at all. " Whom hav- 
ing not seen/' says the apostle Peter, " ye love ; 
in whom, though now ye see him not, yet be- 
lieving, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and 
full of glory." Wherever there is faith there 
is love in the heart to him who is its author, and 
that love will show itself in willing sacrifices of 
what we prefer, when these are required in 
obedience to him that died for us. It will indi- 
cate its force in the surrender of that which is 
good and prized by us, because he to whom 
we are so deeply indebted demands it. Some 
things we must sacrifice — such as sin ; other 
things we must subordinate — such are worldly 
possessions ; and some things we must utterly 
give up — such as Christ condemns, and repro- 
bates, and abhors : and all this we shall do, if we 
have faith in the Son of God, and, implanted in 
our hearts, that kindling spark, that divine and 
celestial flame, which glows with increasing 
ardour, and advances with spreading power, 
until it is merged in that life which is without 
limit, and without measure, and without end, in 
the kingdom of God and of his Christ. 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



599 



Wherever there is this faith in the Son of 
God; or that which is its equivalent^ being born 
again, we shall love his commandments. We 
shall not only have that love which prompts us 
to obey him. but also that change of nature 
which makes us like those commands which 
once we thought very grievous. " His com- 
mands/' 1 says the apostle, " are not grievous." 
A Christian will not only do what Christ bids 
him because Christ bids him, but also because, 
by the new instinct of his new nature, he de- 
lights to do so. Xo slight evidence of Christian 
grace is, our feeling more pleasure in giving a 
shilling to Christ's cause, than we ever felt in 
earning it. We have not yet risen to the enjoy- 
ment of that high test of living love, and real 
Christianity, if we do not thus feel. There is 
deficiency, though there may not be absence of 
all that is essential to constitute the Christian 
character. 

Where there is this faith in the Son of 
God, there will be victory over the world. 
*' This is the victory," says John, " that over- 
cometh the world, even our faith." Its bright 
things will cease to dazzle, its dark things will 
cease to alarm ; we shall neither be driven by it 



600 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

into what is wrong, nor seduced by it into what 
is sinful ; but, by our fast grasp of an unseen 
and a better world, by our faith in him who is 
the way to it, we shall overcome the world ; and 
the trophies that we gain will be the evidences 
of the triumph, and our credentials, beautiful and 
welcome, that we believe in the Son of God, 
and thus discover so far the witness within 
ourselves, that our faith is not a fiction, but a 
reality, a substance, a truth. 

With this faith in the Son of God, there 
will also be the consciousness of spiritual and 
divine life. Spiritual life is to a Christian 
exactly what sensibility is to a man. When 
a man is in health, let a pin prick his lit- 
tle finger, and he feels pain ; even so in spi- 
ritual health, let the least thing that is sinful 
touch him, and he will shrink from it by an 
instinct stronger than reason. Sin is to the new 
life precisely what pain is to the natural life, 
and we have not attained that degree of living 
religion, that power and presence of the Di- 
vinity within us, which is meant to be our 
possession, and is the characteristic of all true 
and real believers, till we shrink from what is 
evil, with instinctive recoil, just as we shrink 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



601 



from the threatened infliction of pain. Wher- 
ever there is true faith in the Son of God, there 
is an inward and spiritual life, refreshed by- 
living water, nourished by living bread, that 
grows in force, vitality, and strength ; that 
speaks for Christ when his name is blasphemed ; 
that sacrifices for Christ when his cause is to be 
promoted ; that counts all things but loss for 
the excellency of him, and is, in its conscious- 
ness within, the witness to the believer that he 
is connected with Jesus Christ, just as the sap 
that permeates the branch is the evidence of its 
union with the parent stem to which it belongs. 

Have we the life of Christ in the soul ? " We 
live, yet not we, but Christ liveth in us." Do 
we feel that we must have bread in the sanc- 
tuary in order that that life may be nourished ? 
Are we conscious of hunger for that which is 
its subsistence and its nutriment, and can we 
give up all we prefer, rather than give up that 
which is essentially necessary — bread to nourish 
and water to refresh the inner and divine life, 
which is the witness within, that we believe on 
the Son of God. 

He that believeth on the Son of God, has also 
the sense of sonship. God hath sent into our 



602 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

hearts the Spirit of his Son, enabling us to say, 
Abba, Father. A Christian therefore feels that 
he is a son of God. He that believeth on the 
Son of God, hath, as the reflex operation of that 
faith, the Spirit of adoption within him. This 
we can easily ascertain, by asking ourselves, How 
do we think of God ? Do we think of him as a 
terrible and an awful Being, whom it is danger 
to approach in our place of business, and in 
our employment in the world ? Is there any 
place where God's presence would be a felt in- 
trusion ? When we think of God, do we array him 
in the awful, or in the affectionate ? or in the 
loving, yet the holy ? How does a young child 
think of its parent ? With perfect confidence, 
with little fear. A Christian should think of 
God precisely in the same way. The highest 
evidence of our Christianity is the feeling of a 
son's affection towards God, our great and good 
Father. Do we go to the table of the Lord 
as if we were approaching a snare to entrap us, 
or as to a joyous festival to which we are wel- 
come ? Do we draw near to the throne of grace, 
deprecating wrath, as criminals who dread the 
judge ? or seeking bread, as sons who have con- 
fidence in their father ? Do we read the Bible 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



603 



as a book that gleams with the lightnings of 
Sinai ? or as a page all radiant with the love and 
light of Calvary ? What are our feelings towards 
God ? These are evidences within us either that 
we are strangers to the gospel, and so far ene- 
mies, or that we are the friends of God, and be- 
lievers in his Son ; and having the witness within 
us that we are children, then, if children, we 
know we are heirs of God, and joint heirs with 
Christ. 

The next witness within us is, the conscious 
spring in our hearts of holy and beneficent 
action. A man who has no real, living religion 
within him, does religious duties as outward, 
mechanical things, as calculations, as things 
that are expedient, or suitable to his circum- 
stances, or fitted to make a good impression 
on those who are about him ; but one who 
has the love of Christ and the life of God, does 
religious things not by calculation, but by im- 
pulse — not from an expediency, supposed or 
real, but from an instinct that he cannot help. 
It is his new nature to do so ; and what other 
men do by mechanical adjustment, by political 
calculation, by the anticipation and the possi- 
bility of contingent results, a Christian does 



604 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

because the impulse of his new nature leads him 
to do so. He does good as a tree bears fruit ; 
it is his and its nature equally to do so. 

The Christian has the witness within himself 
in the inward joy which the gospel is ever fitted 
to inspire. The first effect of the good news of 
the gospel is joy. The first thing that the 
gospel does is to make a man happy, and the 
next , but instantly succeeding thing, is to make 
him holy. What is the definition of the gospel ? 
Good news. What is the first impression pro- 
duced upon one by good news? Joy. That joy 
will dilate into growing gratitude, and that gra- 
titude will unfold itself in growing obedience ; 
and the man who has the greatest joy, as the re- 
sult of his belief in the good news, will feel in 
that joy his strength, and in the gratitude into 
which that joy breaks, as the morning breaks 
into mid- day, the principle of whatsoever things 
are lovely, and just, and honest, and of good re- 
port. Hence the apostle defines the kingdom 
of heaven to be righteousness, peace, and joy. 
The psalmist says of Christian joy, " They re- 
joice all the day long." That joy will ultimately 
soften itself into peace. The joy that we feel at 
the first receipt of good news, becomes less effer- 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



605 



vescent, but not less powerful, when years have 
run their cycles long afterwards ; so the Chris- 
tian, when he is first brought to know the Lord, 
has his mind radiant with light, and his heart 
abounding with joy unutterable and full of 
glory ; but the more he becomes acquainted 
with the truth, the more his joy decreases as a 
passion, and the more it consolidates itself into a 
powerful and actuating principle ; and while in 
after years he may not have all the brilliancy of 
his first love, he has more of its quiet peace and 
strength and force in the depths and recesses 
of his heart. The first feeling when he heard 
the gospel was sunshine, the next is day-light. 
We cannot bear sunshine always, but day-light 
— sometimes cloud, sometimes shadow, some- 
times neither — is best for us. A Christian, there- 
fore, who believes on the Son of God, hath the 
witness, not only of conscious joy at the outset 
of his Christian career, but of peace, into which 
that joy has gradually merged, throughout the 
rest of his life hereafter, alike in the prospect 
of a judgment-day, the grave, and of all things 
seen and earthly passing away. " Thou wilt 
keep in perfect peace the man whose mind is 
stayed on thee." 



608 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 

This is that evidence which peasants and 
humble mechanics have, which is stronger and 
more real than all the evidences of learned 
divines and great philosophers. Many a pea- 
sant who never read Paley, or heard of Butler, 
or saw a volume of Chalmers, has in the depths 
of his heart an eloquent and a ceaseless witness 
that the Bible is the word, and that Christianity 
is the inspiration of God. Were we to ask him 
on what grounds he concludes that it is so ? are 
you acquainted with the external or the internal 
evidences of Christianity ? he would scarcely 
know the meaning of the long words and 
eloquent phrases you employ, but he would tell 
you, Just as I know that the sun shines, and 
that the heather grows, and that the streams 
roll, and that the clouds sail athwart the sky, I 
know that this book is true, and that Jesus is 
the Son of God, for I have in my heart, not the 
foot-prints of his momentary transit, but the 
glorious sunshine of his ceaseless abiding. I 
was blind, I now see ; I was sinful, I am now 
sanctified ; I was careless, I am now anxious ; 
I was miserable, I am now glad. And I know 
by instincts within me, ineradicable and in- 
domitable as my own immortality, that Jesus is 



FULL ASSURANCE. 



607 



the Son of God, and that the Bible that reveals 
him is the truth and the inspiration of his Holy 
Spirit. This is the evidence that will stand all 
shocks ; this is the proof of Christianity that 
scepticism can never sweep away. The Chris- 
tian feels the effects of the gospel — he realizes 
all its transforming power — he knows by a con- 
sciousness within him, surer than argument, 
clearer than logic, that he believes on the Son 
of God, and that the religion he loves and lives 
is the inspiration of the Almighty. 

My dear reader, do you believe on the Son of 
God ? Are you a Christian ? Time sweeps past 
us with the speed of the hurricane ; the great 
ocean of eternity is rolling onward every hour, 
we stand upon a narrow isthmus that is wasted 
by time, and washed by the waves of the eternal 
sea ; a few more days, a few more years, and 
we shall be where there is no more repentance, 
but where the tremendous results of faith in the 
Son of God, or of the neglect or the rejection of 
him, will be eternally and universally realized. 
How is it that men can live a day without some 
deep persuasion whether they are the sons of 
God ? How is it that years are allowed to roll 
on, while no introspective or reflective feelings 



608 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. 



are cherished by us, and no honest investigation 
of the facts of religion in our conscience and 
our heart is entered into ? I know that when I 
ask you first to be Christians, I ask you not to 
look within, but to rest upon the object, Christ, 
that is without. But when I address those who 
doubt, where there need be no doubt, who hesi- 
tate, where there need be no hesitation, who 
suppose they are Christians, when all facts and 
all evidences indicate the reverse, — -then I ask 
you to judge by the feelings you have and the 
fruits you bear, whether you believe on the Son 
of God, or not. 

Decide the question — indecision is present 
agony ; rejection is everlasting ruin ; decision 
for Christ is present and perpetual peace. 



THE END. 




•4 + 



JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTechnologii 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATI 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



